SO, YOU THINK YOU HAVEN’T BEEN BRAINWASHED?

Some thirty or forty years ago, when I still considered myself a Bible-believing Christian---ugly self-serving words they are---I all too often heard Christian evangelical preachers rail against the ‘dangers of the cults.’ ‘Beware of the cults, the occult, and all that,’ was their rallying call. 

Actually, these preachers did me a very great service. They protested so much, and so loudly, against these so-called cults that they aroused an interest and a curiosity in me to learn more about them. I even joined a couple of them along the way---and it widened my mind considerably ... something I very much needed. Come to think of it, I even became---and still am---an ordained minister of one of them. Yes, I'm proud to be a heretic. By the way, the word 'heretic' means one who chooses to think differently. We need more heretics in the world---more people who are prepared to think differently. Bring it on.

True, there have been some evil and truly dangerous cults along the way. I think of Jim Jones, his so-called Peoples Temple, and the Jonestown Massacre [pictured above] … and I think of many others, some just plain wacky, some mere money-making shams, others more sinister in nature and effect, some of which are still active today, one of which I’m too scared to mention by name in this post lest I be sued. Say no more.

The thing is, nearly all of us have been the victim of cults of one sort or another. Now, let’s get down to basics. What is a ‘cult’?  The word cult, from the Latin word cultus, refers to a faith-based community of likeminded people who come together on a regular basis to worship; more specifically, the word refers to the specific form of worship, together with the body of beliefs and related practices, of a particular sect. (Note. The word ‘sect,’ like the word ‘cult,’ is very much a pejorative word, but every religious organization or group is a ‘sect’ in the eyes of the law, even if the word more rightly refers to some subgroup or offshoot of a larger organization or group which has its own different set of rules, doctrines, and principles.)

Now, a cult, in the religious sense, is simply a system of religious beliefs that replaces one’s own beliefs with its own, and gives legitimacy---sometimes blatantly, and sometimes quite subtly---only to its own teachings, such that, if a person cannot or does not conform, they are excluded whether by formal excommunication, censure, or other means. More often than not, a cult gives the impress of finality, if not infallibility, to any one or more of the following---its founder, its current leader(s), and its so-called holy book(s). Get the idea? The Roman Catholic Church is the largest single cult in the world today.

Let’s say you were reared a Baptist, or a Roman Catholic, or an Orthodox Jew … or perhaps a Buddhist of one sort or another ... or maybe a Humanist or an atheist. Well, you were part of a cult, and you were subjected to brainwashing of one sort or another. Yes, the conditioning---the beliefs and values inculcated into you---was nothing less than brainwashing, and it’s rather ironic that the religious groups doing the most brainwashing are almost invariably the ones screaming the loudest against the dangers of brainwashing.

When I was a Baptist, I was taught that only certain people---those Bible-believing Christians who held similar beliefs to those inculcated into me---would go to heaven. There was little or no hope for the vast bulk of humanity, including people such as Roman Catholics and other non-evangelical ‘Christians.’ (The people with whom I worshipped did not consider those so-called Christians to be Christians at all. Roman Catholics, in particular, taught a 'false gospel.' Get the picture?) One of my Baptist ministers---actually the one who married my wife and I  (i.e. was the officiant minister) way back in 1980---would often say in his sermons, ‘God has spoken His final word in Jesus Christ,’ and ‘If Christianity is right, all other religions are wrong.’ (I have attacked the silliness of those sorts of statements elsewhere.) 

The Baptist minister of whom I speak also taught in a Baptist theological college for many years, and was later a president of the Baptist Union of Queensland, so he was highly respected in the denomination to which I once belonged. In sermon after sermon I was taught---yes, brainwashed---by one narrow-minded and bigoted minister after another a very narrow and exclusivist system of Biblical exegesis and conservative evangelical (and at times fundamentalist) doctrine. Indeed, the doctrinal system preached was an unwarranted imposition upon sacred scripture of a rigid ideology---yes, ideology---an artificial construct that was never part of the original teachings of the religion or its founder. 

While I am on the subject of evangelicals and fundamentalists, I like what the San Francisco journalist and columnist Herb Caen said about so-called 'born again Christians.' He said, ‘The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.’ How true! No wonder these sorts of religious organizations turn so many people into atheists. When I think of the inward-looking and for the most part financially very well-off Baptists in my old church---actually, I try not to think of them at all---I am reminded of some words written by the American Episcopalian priest (and de facto cofounder of the wonderful organization Alcoholics Anonymous) Dr Sam Shoemaker [pictured right]. He referred to people such as these as 'comfortable evangelicals, hugging personal salvation to themselves, living off the sweat of underpaid labour, blind to their own guilt for social injustice, and fattening their souls for heaven.' Great stuff! I wish I'd written that.

Back to Alcoholics Anonymous for a moment. Do you know that none of the Baptist ministers I have known---and I have known a lot---had ever stepped into an AA meeting-room? What's more, none of them had the slightest desire to go to one, to see the transformations that can and do take place in the lives of otherwise hopeless and powerless alcoholics. You'd think they'd be interested in spiritual healing. After all, the man they purported to worship as Lord went about the countryside healing and casting out devils. No, they had no interest in the subject at all. Perhaps they were frightened they'd meet a bunch of active full-on drunks. Far from it. Or maybe they still saw alcoholism as being a sin or moral weakness as opposed to a disease. Few knew anything at all about the subject. It's largely the same today, at least among evangelical pastors. (Catholic priests, to their credit, are generally better educated on the matter.) 

I say this: more miracles---and I mean true life-changing miracles---take place in AA [and other 12-step group] meeting-rooms than in churches ... on all days of the week. People wake up to the reality of their true selves, and discard all that is false, and a chronic, progressive and terminal illness is arrested. Now, that is real salvation. One last thing. I've even heard some Baptist pastors, and some from other conservative evangelical denominations as well, attack AA as being a 'cult,' or even 'of the Devil'---because of (quote) 'all that "Higher Power" and "God as you understand Him" stuff ... why, there's no mention of Jesus Christ at all in those Twelve Steps!' Speaking personally, I'm mighty glad there isn't. Get real, the lot of you. Wake up! Listen to what the greatest Baptist thinker of his time, Dr Harry Emerson Fosdick [pictured left], had to say about the life-changing power of AA: ‘I have listened to many learned arguments about God, but for honest-to-goodness experiential evidence of God, His power personally appropriated and His reality indubitably assured, give me a good meeting of AA!’

Now, if you think I’m being too hard on the Baptists I could tell you stories---some firsthand on my part---of some of the other religious organizations mentioned above. The stories would be very similar in key respects. For example, my many years' association with Humanists and atheists led me to conclude that many of them were as dogmatic, intolerant, and militant as the Baptists. Ditto the Catholics and even some Buddhists I've known. Yes, most of us have been brainwashed, if not by religious organizations then by political ones, our families, our educational and social institutions, and so on. We stopped thinking for ourselves, and were taught to think one way only.

Today, I am in the un-brainwashing business---if business be the right word (I make no money out of it). My ‘message’---a horrible word---to all who take the time to listen is a simple one. Life (i.e. Truth, Reality, God) just is. It---whatever ‘it’ may be---is all there is, and all we have and are capable of knowing, and it unfolds unceasingly from one moment to the next, and if you want to ‘know’ and ‘understand’ you must throw away all your beliefs (yes, all of them) and simply look, see, observe, and examine. Put no barriers, and allow none to be erected, between you and your own direct, immediate and unmediated moment-to-moment experience of Life as it unfolds as the Eternal Now. 

Now, you may say, ‘Ellis-Jones, isn’t that---what you’ve just described---some belief of yours?’ I say, ‘No, not at all. I am simply describing and experiencing what is---as it unfolds. I offer no judgment, interpretation, or analysis of what is. I let ‘it’ speak for itself. Such is the nature of Truth. It is not a matter of opinion.’ I have no time for beliefs at all, whether those beleifs be religious, political, or whatever. I oppose all belief-systems. I like what the American author and speaker Vernon Howard [pictured below] said about beliefs. He said, ‘People assume that beliefs can open the highway to happiness, when in fact a man's beliefs keep him on endless detours. The reason beliefs cannot sustain anyone is because life's events do not believe in beliefs.’ You see, there's reality .. and there's beliefs about reality. I choose the former. It is more than enough. While I'm on the subject of beliefs, here's another gem of profound spiritual wisdom from Vernon Howard, a man who always told it like it is: ‘There is hope for whoever does not know what to believe. Human belief is a combination of superstition, gullibility and mental laziness. We need not believe anything; we need to find, to see, to know.’ 

Yes, I am very happy today. I have thrown away all of the beliefs I once held or thought I held. I have no beliefs, no illusions, and no delusions so far as I am aware, and I reject all so-called ‘methods’ and ‘techniques’, and ‘paths’ and ‘ways,’ to Truth. There is no ‘way’ to Truth. Why should there be? A ‘path’ or ‘way’ implies a distance, a separation, between us and Truth, and that simply isn’t the case. A 'method' or 'technique' is simply a form of brainwashing. You don't need any of them---at least not when it comes to experiencing and knowing and understanding Life, which, at the end of the day, is all that truly matters. No person---god, demi-god, messiah, saint, ‘holy one,’ guru, master ('ascended' [?] or otherwise), or teacher---is Truth or is the ‘way’ to Truth … despite what you have read or been taught by others in positions of so-called authority. Now, please don’t think I am a nihilist---far from it. I hold and affirm certain convictions and values, but all of them derive directly and objectively from Life itself, and from an ongoing experience of Life. The convictions and values I affirm as true are ‘things’ I have come to know and understand. They are not articles of faith or belief. Not at all.

I want you to think about just how much brainwashing you have been exposed to in your lifetime. I’m sure it’s much more extensive than you might have first thought to be the case.

Happy un-brainwashing, each and every one of you!

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YOU ARE THE PROBLEM!

‘To escape the self-trap, to be sane and decent and awake
and whole — that is all that matters.’ Vernon Howard.

You are the problem---on every occasion. Yes, you---and me for that matter. So, what is the problem, you may ask? Well, it can be any problem whatsoever, but the real problem is what the American spiritual teacher Vernon Howard [pictured left] referred to as the ‘self-trap.’ Please read this piece of wisdom from Mr Howard:

‘The attempt to escape a problem is the problem. There is logic in this. When a man tries to escape, when he moves away from the problem, he divides himself into one man with a problem, and another man who will escape the problem. In reality, there is no such division, so the escape must always fail, as the man sadly experiences. But, when seeing he is the problem itself, that he and his problem are one, he stops trying to escape because he sees there is no other course. In this state of intelligent acknowledgement of reality, he will not have the problem.’

I often explain it this way. In each of us there are many selves, and they are all false—false in the sense that they are not the real person each one of us is. When we ‘have’ (an unfortunate word in this context) a problem, there is the ‘self that wants to escape the problem,’ and there are many other selves in our mind as well, including the ‘self that doesn’t want to escape the problem,’ as well as the ‘self that thinks it will escape the problem,’ and the ‘self that thinks it knows how to escape the problem.’ None of these selves have any power in and of themselves, none of them can rise above their own level, and many of the selves militate, and even fight, against other selves in our mind. You need to understand that all of these selves are simply mental images in our brains. They wax and wane, they come and go, they vary in felt intensity from moment to moment, but they are all transitory, temporary and for that reason illusory. None of these selves are separate or independent from the real person each one of us is. In his book Esoteric Mind Power Vernon Howard writes about what he calls the ‘self-divided man’ who ‘consists of dozens of "selves" which fight each other in taking him over for a few minutes at a time.’ Howard writes:

'Living in a state of psychic riot, he is thrilled one minute and dejected the next. One part of him is a danger to another part. So what can be trusted? Nothing. The self-knowing man has cleared his mental streets of these rioters, leaving him with a whole and healthy mind, which can be trusted completely.'

Let’s say you have an anger problem. There is anger in you, so to speak, but the reality is you are angry because you have so identified yourself with the ‘self that is angry’ and the ‘self that wants to be [and stay] angry’ that you have become at-one with the anger. You and the problem are one in that special sense and, as the onetime Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple pointed out, ‘no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own endeavour.’ Many others have said more-or-less the same thing. A couple of centuries earlier the French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer François Fénelon wrote, 'The entire root of your problem is that you cannot get out of yourself,' and many more centuries earlier Jesus said, 'I can of mine own self do nothing' (Jn 5:30). Truth is truth. It never changes. It cannot change. If it could it wouldn't be truth. 

The reason 'self can't change self' (and therefore can't solve the fundamental problem of self) is simple---the ‘self that wants to escape an unwanted self’ is the same thing as the ‘self that thinks it will escape the unwanted self,’ the ‘self that thinks it knows how to escape the unwanted self,’ and the ‘self that doesn’t want to escape the unwanted self,’ and all the other damn selves as well. All of these selves are false and powerless---they're just mere images in our mind. The trouble is, we believe in them and act as if they were real. Now read what Krishnamurti [pictured below right], the Indian spiritual philosopher, has to say about this dilemma:

'I am angry, is that anger different from me? Me, the observer, who says "I am angry." Or that anger is part of me. It seems so simple. No? And when I realize that, that the observer is the observed, that the anger which I recognize is part of me, not something apart, then what am I to do with that anger? I am not separate from that anger. I am anger.'

Dr Norman Vincent Peale wrote, 'There needs to be a shift in emphasis from self to non-self,' but how is that to be achieved given that self can't change self? Clearly, a major paradigm shift is needed---but how? (First, don't ask 'how.') The good news is that you, the person that you are, has power to change---when you see yourself as you really are, when you make a decision that you really want to live differently, and when you are prepared to ‘drop,’ so to speak, your strong identification with your false self or selves. Krishnamurti would often say, ‘Stop trying to escape from the fact of yourself.’ You can’t do it, but when you drop the false, that is, see the false as false, and stop hanging onto and identifying with the false, the real is revealed. In the case of anger, for example, you need to observe the anger without recognition---without even using the word anger, which is a form of recognition.

Self-observation is the answer. You need to see yourself as you really are, without identifying in any way with any of your multitude of selves, thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, or actions. Do not judge or condemn yourself. Be impartial and objective, and simply observe without reaction and identification. Only in this way will you, the person that you are, be able to deliver the person that you are from the bondage or burden of the problem of the false self. You, the person who has chosen to be at-one with the ‘self that is [and wants to stay] angry,’ and various other mischievous selves as well, must come to see clearly that all such selves are false… no matter how much attention, identification, and recognition you have given them in the past.

Vernon Howard would often say, ‘You don’t have to create your deliverance, your freedom. You can have it, right now. It’s there for you, right now. Who has bound you? Claim your deliverance and freedom, right now!’ All that is needed, on your part, is what Mr Howard refers to as a ‘state of intelligent acknowledgement of reality.’

I will finish with this. 'No self. No problem,' said the Zen master when asked to explain the deeper meaning of Buddhism. 

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‘ENTER ZEN FROM THERE,’ SAID THE MASTER

There is a Zen story that goes like this. ‘Master, how do I enter Zen?’ asked the pupil. ‘Do you hear the sound of that little mountain steam?’ asked the master. ‘Yes, I do,’ replied the pupil. ‘Enter Zen from there,’ said the master. 

The pupil then thought for a while about what the master had said to him, before eventually saying to the master, ‘Master, I’ve been thinking … What if I had said I couldn’t hear the mountain stream? … What would you have said then?’ 

‘Disciple?’ said the master. ‘Yes, master?’ said the pupil. ‘Enter Zen from there,’ replied the master.

‘Enter Zen from there.’ What wisdom there is in those four English words!

If you ask, ‘What is Zen,’ you should not expect an answer---certainly not an answer that says something definite and intelligible to the conscious, rational intellect. You see, Zen is something inherently indescribable. Words fail to explain it or exhaust its meaning. However, if the Zen story set forth above says anything, it says this---Zen is to be experienced in the real and the ‘concrete’ as opposed to the abstract. 

In Western religion the Ultimate ('God,' if you wish) is sometimes referred to as Pure Being or something like that---a very abstract idea. In Eastern religion the Ultimate---Zen, the Tao---is more like Pure Be-ing-ness/Living-ness of life itself experienced as real, living things---something (actually, 'no-thing') much more concrete. Get the idea? (If you do, you can explain it to me. Just kidding.) In Western religion the Ultimate creates by making. In Eastern religion the Ultimate creates (not quite the right word here) by 'not-making.' The Tao, the very essence of life, is something growing and evolving. It is forever dynamic and not static. It must be found in the everyday things of life---for example, in the sound of a mountain stream, or in the absence of any such sound, or in those inexplicable and gratuitously unfair things of life such as the death of one of your children.

The Chinese refer to this Ultimate as wu-wei---wu (mu in Japanese) meaning ‘not’ or ‘non-’ and wei action, doing, striving, making, and busyness. So, wu-wei refers to a state of mind that is characterized by ‘non-graspingness’ or ‘non-strivingness.’ It is not so much non-action, non-doing, or not-doing, but the ‘action of non-action.’ It is a mindset that is totally and openly accepting of what is, of what unfolds from one moment to the next. It is a mind which is constantly moving, both spontaneously and effortlessly, with and in response to changes that occur both inside and outside the mind. It is a mindset that is not fixed on any particular object.

Both Zen and mindfulness have each been described as the ‘method of no method.’ Each is the ‘technique of no technique.’ (All so-called methods or techniques are forms of brainwashing by some other person. They are means of control and subjugation, as Krishnamurti [pictured below] often said. Avoid them. Eschew them.) Living mindfully requires no method or technique as such. You just do ‘it,’ whatever the ‘it’ may be … mindfully. You just drop your attachments---and look and observe choicelessly.

Do you want to know the 'secret to life'? Well, start with this. There is no secret to life, and no ‘way’ or ‘path’ to Truth other than the moment-to-moment direct and immediate and unmediated experience of life itself as it unfolds from one moment to the next. 

Yes, the so-called ‘meaning’ (such an ugly word!) of life is to be found in the living of your days, in the very livingness of life itself. You will not find true meaning in anything or anyone other than in the real and concrete things of life. Those things include, of course, human relationships which can be quite meaningful. The intangible is to be found in the tangible. Indeed, the intangible and the tangible are one and the same. The extraordinary is to be found in the ordinary. Again, they are one and the same.

So, look for the Ultimate in the so-called ordinary things of life and nature---yes, in the everyday things of life, whatever they may be. Forget all about striving, straining, doing, and making. Most importantly, forget all about grasping and clinging. Instead, live mindfully, spontaneously, and effortlessly.

Calligraphy: (top left) mu [not, nothing, no-thing]; (below) mindfulness.

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MINDFULNESS AS BARE ATTENTION

Now, please stand to attention ... and give me your full attention. Alright, can I ask for your 'bare attention'? 'What the hell is that?', I hear you ask. Well, let me explain. This post is all about mindfulness and, more specifically, a most important element involved in mindfulness called 'bare attention.' (No, not 'bear' attention, or 'bare' [as in 'barenaked'] attention, just bare attention. Stop being frivolous, Ellis-Jones.)

Let's begin. For what it's worth, my own definition of mindfulness goes something like this:

Mindfulness is the watchful, receptive, deliberate, and purposeful presence of bare attention to, and choiceless awareness of, the content of the action (both internal and external) of the present moment … from one moment to the next.

The word ‘presence’ refers to both physical and psychological presence---of you, your body, and your mind. 'Watchful' presence means that there you are very much aware that you're aware of what is going on in and about you, and this alert and open awareness of your actual awareness proceeds deliberately, purposefully, and receptively on your part. I will speak about ‘bare attention’ in this post. In at least one previous post I have written about the meaning of those words ‘choiceless [i.e. non-judgmental] awareness.’ I use the word ‘content’ because it is ‘content’---in terms of our personal experiences of actual occurrences of things in space and time---of which we are aware and to which we ought to give clear and single-minded attention.

That content may be internal (eg thoughts, feelings, mental images, as well as bodily sensations and the like) or external (sounds, sights, etc), and, as I say, we are talking about the content of actual events be they internal or external or as is almost invariably the case a mixture of both of those things. And it is action in the present moment; thus the recollection of some memory of a past event is a present ‘now’ experience. It is always experience in the present moment. However, as we all know, the present moment is ever so elusive and ephemeral. Life is a constant flow, and never static, and so we speak of the action of the present moment from one moment to the next.

Now, what do we mean by ‘bare attention’? One of the best books ever written on meditation, and insight meditation (or mindfulness) in particular, is The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, by the German-born Sri-Lanka-ordained Theravada monk, Nyanaponika Thera [pictured]. Before I go any further I need to make it perfectly clear that you don’t have to be into Buddhism to practise the type of meditation I write about on my blog. Not at all. Indeed, you don’t have to be religious at all. (Perhaps it helps not to be. Only kidding.)

Anyway, all you need is a purposively open mind---and, most importantly, a mind that is curious and receptive to whatever is happening in your moment-to-moment experience of daily life. And, after all, is it not self-evident that it helps to be purposefully alert, receptive, and attentive to what is going on in and about us? Whenever I mention that I'm into mindfulness some people immediately think of yellow robes, gurus, transcendental states of consciousness, mind-altering drugs, alternative medicine, alternative spirituality, out-of-body experiences, escapism, and just plain wackiness. Mindfulness is none of those things. Mindfulness is simply going about your daily, everyday life---with your eyes wide open and your mind open, curious and engaged. Got that? Then please never forget it---and pass the word around.

Back to Nyanaponika Thera. In his book The Heart of Buddhist Meditation the venerable monk and teacher defines, or rather describes, bare attention in these words:

Bare attention is the clear and single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us, at the successive moments of perception. It is called ‘bare’, because it attends just to the bare facts of a perception as presented either through the five physical senses or through the mind which, for Buddhist thought, constitutes the sixth sense. When attending to that sixfold sense impression, attention or mindfulness is kept to a bare registering of the facts observed, without reacting to them by deed, speech or by mental comment which may be one of self-reference (like, dislike, etc), judgement or reflection. … [original emphasis]

Now, I can hear you asking, ‘But what if I find myself wandering in thought, or starting to form some liking or disliking of the content of the experience---a reaction, in other words?’ Well, Nyanaponika Thera gives this advice:

If during the time, short or long, given to the practice of Bare Attention, any such comments arise in one’s mind, they themselves are made objects of Bare Attention, and are neither repudiated nor pursued, but are dismissed, after a brief mental note has been made of them.

One of way of doing the latter---and perhaps the simplest and least intrusive way---is simply to say, ‘Thinking, thinking,’ or ‘feeling, feeling,’ or something like that. In other words, any noting should be brief and perfunctory. Now, for heaven’s sake, never try to actively expel the thought, feeling, or whatever. Remember the law of non-resistance? Whatever you resist, persists. Be gentle, and use indirect means. Just ‘note’ and gently---yes, gently, indeed ever so gently---bring your mind back to a state of clear and single-minded awareness of what is otherwise happening in and around you. Observe each thought or feeling as it arises---then let it fade out in its natural manner ... as it always will, provided you don't resist it or get 'carried away' by and with it. 

One more bit of useful advice from Nyanaponika Thera. (Note. He has much more to say about the matter in his book. Please get a copy of it. I think it will help you immeasurably.) Your bare attention should not only be clear and single-minded, it should also consist in a ‘bare and exact registering of the object [of your moment-to-moment experience].’ In other words, let your concern be solely with registering---with passive detachment and objectivity---the facticity and actuality of things-as-they-really-are as they unfold from one moment to the next. Do not personalize this. Just watch and observe, as if it all were happening to someone else (that is, as if you have no personal connection with whatever you observe). That is not an easy thing to do, as we are all so accustomed to labeling, judging, interpreting, analyzing, and otherwise commenting upon things-as-they-happen. The inevitable result? We lose direct and immediate contact with reality. We are no longer with ‘it,’ so to speak. We are some place else. That is certainly not the best way to live. We all know that from personal experience. So, don't dwell upon or otherwise cling to thoughts and feelings. Let them fade out in their natural manner.

Only when we live mindfully, with bare attention, can we truly be said to be living in the 'now,' experiencing life right as it happens, so to speak. Sure, there is a place for labeling, judging, interpreting, analyzing, and otherwise commenting upon things-as-they-happen---but not every second or few seconds. That is not the way to go. Bare attention means being and living attentively, receptively, and purposefully in the so-called present moment ... for moments pass. As I write this, THIS (now past) moment has already gone forever …never to return. Such is life.

By the way, Nyanaponika Thera had this to say in his book about mindfulness. He said that mindfulness---the 'method of no-method'---provides 'the most simple and direct, the most thorough and effective, method for training and developing the mind for its daily tasks and problems.' That's what you really want---or at least need---isn't it? If so, please forget about costly, gimmicky and trademarked forms or so-called 'techniques' (oh, how I hate that word) of meditation, and go for the most simple, direct, and natural means available and proceed to apply it to your entire life. You see, mindfulness takes meditation---in the true sense and meaning of the word---and then applies it to one's whole life.

Happy bare-attentioning, everyone!

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BEYOND TRADITIONAL RELIGION: THE REAL MIRACLE OF EASTER

First, let me tell you what I can’t and don’t believe about Easter. I don’t believe that Jesus literally and bodily rose from dead. I like what the now retired but ever-iconoclastic and controversial Anglican bishop Dr David Jenkins [pictured left] said about that idea. He called the notion ‘a conjuring trick with bones.’ How wickedly funny! 

I do, however, know this---Jesus rose spiritually from the tomb. Punishment and death could not destroy the power of his personality and his spirit and his message. Jesus lives today, not so much in the lives of those who purport to follow him (most of whom show little or no resemblance in their daily lives to Jesus at all), but in the lives of those persons, the bulk of whom would not want to label themselves as Christians, who give constantly of themselves to others in practical service and self-sacrifice so that the troubles of suffering humanity might be relieved.

I now want to say a few words about what I refer to as the ‘macro and micro’ of the Easter story.

In a previous post I have written about the ‘macro’ of Easter, namely, that the Crucifixion is an 'object lesson' and acted parable or dramatization of the ongoing cosmic sacrifice---the self-limitation (crucifixion) of life itself---in which the spirit of life, the one absolute reality which antecedes all manifested things, ever descends into matter, ever offers itself, and ever gives of itself to itself in manifestation, so that life, in all of its multiplicity of forms, may be perpetuated. It is a mystery. It is a wonder. It is divine. What a tragic and terrible thing it is that conventional, mainstream Christianity has so totally literalized and carnalized this truly sublime myth, distorting---even destroying---its true meaning.

Now, the ‘micro’ of Easter. Easter, as we all know, is about dying and rising again. The end of every day is a ‘death’ of sorts. It is gone forever. Now, that is a very good thing, for if it were not to happen there could be no tomorrow. Every new day is a rising of sorts. But it’s even deeper than that. Every new moment is a new beginning---a resurrection of life. We must constantly ‘die’ and ‘rise again’ into newness of life.  Most importantly, we must die to self each moment of the day if we wish to be free from the bondage of self. I have often said that we are in bondage to self. All our problems result from that. Freedom lies in constantly dying to self and being resurrected into newness of life. No, not even Jesus can do that for you, despite what some misguided people may have told you. You, and you alone, must do ‘it’ for yourself. You, the person among persons that you are, can and must break the bondage of self---the prison-house of self you have made for yourself---if you want to really become the real person you were destined to be.

May you be resurrected into newness of life this Easter.

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TRUE LIVING IS A PERPETUAL RESURRECTION

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE ‘CONSTANTLY AWARE’?

‘But how can I be constantly aware?’ a student said to me the other day. ‘Surely that’s impossible---not to mention very tiring!’

He’s right, you know. Yet so many books on mindfulness and meditation generally talk about the need to be constantly aware. For example, Krishnamurti wrote, 'True meditation is constant awareness, constant pliability, and clear discernment.' But how is that possible? Well, it’s not. It’s just a manner of speaking, so to speak. We must look beyond the words, as Krishnamurti would also say. ‘The word is not the thing,’ he often said. Good advice, that.

The fifth international president of the Theosophical Society, of which I am a member, was a very spiritual and enlightened man---N Sri Ram [pictured left]. He wrote much that I have found to be both inspiring and very practical. In one of his writings Sri Ram addressed the very matter I’m talking about now, namely, this idea of 'constant awareness.' He wrote:

At the same time it is not possible to be turning the attention to what passes in our minds all the hours of the waking day. We would find it too fatiguing, the attention would wander, just as when we try to meditate on a particular theme. To be constantly aware is a manner of speaking. When you try to meditate or contemplate something, you will find that the mind wanders off within a minute or two, and exactly the same thing happens when you try to pay attention to your thinking. This difficulty was put to Krishnamurti, and in one of his talks he replied, ‘play with it,’ that is, take it easy. He also lays stress on non-effort, that means it has to be done easily and pleasantly. …

Sri Ram goes on to refer to so-called constant awareness as simply the immediate perception of something taking place. ‘We have to become so sensitive that as soon as something takes place, whether outside or inside ourselves, we immediately perceive it, like a well-trained musician who becomes conscious of a false note as soon as it is struck. … This requires a certain sensitivity, without which one will not be aware.’

I have often written about the need for non-effort. ‘Resist not’ is the great wisdom of the ages. When we resist (something), there is an immediate loss of immediate perception. Straightaway we embark upon translation, interpretation, analysis, judgment, and condemnation. Meditation, wrote Sri Ram, requires a mind 'completely denuded of all previous ideas and knowledge.' Whenever there is translation, interpretation, analysis, judgment or condemnation, the 'past'---in the form of beliefs, conditioning, ideas, values, and so forth---is at work, and we are then no longer in the now. So, let any thoughts or feelings that arise fade out in their natural manner. Don't dwell upon or otherwise cling to them in any way.

The essence of mindfulness is the immediate perception of what is, from one moment to the next. The content of that which is perceived may be outside or inside ourselves. It will always be an uneven mixture of both. So be it. Such is the flow of life. Stay with it. Be with it … and live. Mindfully.



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BRUCE LEE ON MINDFULNESS 

THE ZEN WAY TO CALM YOUR MIND

There are many interpretations of this piece of Zen wisdom. Here’s my take on it---but first a few words on the mind and the brain.

The materialist view that asserts that the mind and the brain are one and the same---the so-called mind-brain identity theory is wrong ... very wrong. Recent discoveries in neuroscience as respects the mind and the brain, and in quantum physics as respects the nature of reality, have shown that the mind and the brain are not co-extensive or identical, and that mind or consciousness is the creator and governor of so-called matter. 

Now, the brain uses the mind---to think, feel, and so on---but the mind is ‘larger’ (for want of a better word) than the brain. The brain is infused with mind, as are all parts of the human body. Mind exists outside of and even beyond the brain. Mind is consciousness, and there is mind wherever there is life in any shape or form. The brain is a physical object that can be seen by the eye. It is perceptible by the senses, and like all material objects it has size, weight, and form. Not so the mind, which has no parts. The mind is non-physical, immaterial, and spiritual. (A 'spiritual' substance is something which, although real, is not perceptible by the senses. We only know 'it' by its effects.) The brain perishes with the human body. Not so mind, which is the very essence and substance of life itself. Life is forever changing shape and form, but life itself is indestructible.

In a sense, we have no mind at all. That means there is no mind to calm. So, what exactly are we---each one of us? Well, each of us is a centre---an inlet and an outlet---of consciousness from which all things are a matter of observation. We are made up of ‘mind-stuff’ and awareness or consciousness is the ‘stuff’ or very ground of our being. Yes, you have a body, but you are not that body. You experience sensations in your body, but you are not those sensations. You have a brain, but you are not that brain. You have thoughts, but you are not those thoughts. (Note. I didn't say, 'you think thoughts.' It is thought that creates the supposed 'thinker,' but neither thought nor the thinker has any permanence.) You have emotions, feelings and desires, but you are not those emotions, feelings or desires. All those 'things' are impermanent and insubstantial. So, what are you? You are that in you that lives and moves and has its be-ing in and as you. You are the impersonal, and you are the personal. You are your be-ing.  Life is be-ing, and its be-ing is your be-ing.

Mind is be-ing, or rather be-ing-ness, and only that is permanent. Mind is the All-in-All, overall all and through all. We are immersed in mind. We have our very be-ing in mind. Mind is infinite. Any attempt to find it will fail. Mind is life, and life is consciousness. Mind within you is the only presence there is. It is the ‘silent voice’ that speaks into visibility all the life there is. Mind---your ‘I Am-ness’---is what is, and that is what in truth you are.

There is no need to calm your mind. For starters, where is your mind? Can you find it? You cannot calm it---or for that matter do anything else with it---unless you can first locate it.

In the Zen exchange set out above the master does the only thing any teacher or so-called guru really can do. The master manages to get the pupil to have an enlightening experience in which the pupil comes to ‘see,’ know and understand for himself … perhaps for the very first time. Here, the master successfully leads the pupil to experience, in that Zen direct intuitive way, the fact that he (the pupil) has no mind to calm. All the pupil---and all of us for that matter---has to do is to … BE CALM. 

Stop looking for your mind. Stop analyzing and judging the contents of what you take to be your mind. And stop identifying with those contents as if they were you, the person among persons that you are. Do you want to be calm? If so, practise calmness. Practise stillness. Practise quietness. Practise silence. You see, the very truth of your be-ing is calmness, stillness, quietness, and silence. A good way to start---and finish for that matter---is to get the body calm. Yes, the body. If the body is calm, you will soon be calm. Be still ... and know.

That is all you have to do. It sounds too amazing to be true, but truth is always like that.

There, you see, I’ve calmed your mind already.

Calligraphy: Mushin---'empty mind.'

RELATED POSTS

THE MINDFUL MIND OF NO-MIND

THE AWARENESS OF AWARENESS

CONTINUOUS MINDFULNESS AND AWARENESS OF REALITY

MINDFULNESS, THE ‘SELF’ AND SERENITY

THE TIMELESS IN YOU---AND THE DEATH OF MATERIALISM

'ENTER ZEN FROM THERE,' SAID THE MASTER

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