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’RE AN ATHEIST? THAT’S GOOD!

'Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but
the last fading smile of a Cheshire cat.' - Sir Julian Huxley.

I notice that more and more people are calling themselves atheists these days---unashamedly. Not that there should be any shame about the matter. Not at all. Yes, atheism is fine with me. You see, in most cases, these people have simply rejected silly, outmoded ideas or concepts of God which weren’t God in any event. After all, the word is never the thing, as Krishnamurti kept telling us. The good thing about giving up belief in God is that there is then a real chance you may find the real God---which is the very livingness, oneness and self-givingness of life itself.

A Columbia University student once went to see Dr Harry Emerson Fosdick (pictured left), who was then the minister of Riverside Church in New York City. Fosdick was perhaps the greatest Christian thinker of his day---and the leading Modernist in Protestant Christianity. The student was very agitated. Before he had time to sit down he announced to Fosdick that he didn’t believe in God. ‘So, you’re an atheist,’ said Fosdick. ‘Please describe for me the God you don’t believe in.’ The student did a good job of picturing a fairly traditional Judeo-Christian God as a venerable but vindictive bookkeeper who was forever taking notes of everyone’s good and bad deeds. When the student had finished Fosdick said to him, ‘Well, if that is the God you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in that God either. So, we are both atheists. Nevertheless, we still have the universe on our hands. What do you make of it---its formation, its meaning?’

Fosdick will always be one of my ‘gurus,’ although I hate that word. Fosdick once wrote this:

The way parents lie to their children in matters of religion is to me a constant and shocking astonishment. Here is a mother who tells me that in answer to her four-year-old’s question as to where God is she has said, ‘In heaven’; and in reply to the further inquiry as to where heaven is she has said, ‘In the sky.’ This mother has now waked up to the fact that these heedless answers were downright falsehoods. She did not believe what she said. And she did not, apparently, comprehend that teaching the child an idea of God set in such an incredible framework of imagination was the surest way to have that child say some day that she did not believe in God.

Dr Fosdick went on to say, ‘The New Testament says that God is love; that where love is, God is also, dwelling in those who are lovers of their fellows; that God is spirit, surrounding and interpenetrating us so that God lives in us and we in God.’ Now that is a more sensible---and entirely Biblical---concept of God.

I recall that Dr Fosdick also wrote, 'Better believe in no God than to believe in a cruel God, a tribal God, a sectarian God. Belief in God is one of the most dangerous beliefs a person can cherish. ... Some of the people who do not believe in God at all are more merciful, truth-loving, and just than are some who do.' Once, at the Sydney Town Hall, before the start of an important debate between Dr William Lane Craig and Dr Peter Slezak on the topic of the existence of God I read out those immortal words of Fosdick, having been asked by the debate organisers, St Barnabas Anglican Church, Broadway, to say a few words. (I had been involved in the selection of the atheist---Peter Slezak---to debate Craig.) The video tape of the debate produced by the church did not contain the words of Fosdick. They were edited out by the then assistant minister of the church. I was disgusted---and I still get angry about it when I recall what happened. I was soon to learn that debating---and even interacting with---so-called (and self-servingly called) 'Bible-believing Christians' can be a very unpleasant---and totally unChrist-like---experience. I will have more to say about that below.

Now, back to the topic. Recently I communicated by email with a lawyer whose daughter has Down syndrome. The lawyer mentioned he was an atheist, and it was clear he had some fairly strong things to say about religion. I suspect---although I can’t be sure---that ‘part’ of this man’s atheism is an emotional reaction to having a child with Down syndrome. I also suspect---although again I can’t be sure---that this man’s parents, or the church or Sunday school he may have attended as a child, or perhaps a 'church school' (which are very good at churning out atheists---not their intention, of course), told him ‘downright falsehoods’---Fosdick’s words---about the nature of God.

I detest religious fundamentalists because they do terrible things to religion. They destroy it by imposing upon it a rigid ideology, that is, an artificial construct which was never part of the original teachings of the religion or its founder. They turn many people into atheists.

As for the ‘new atheists’---people such as Richard Dawkins (pictured right), Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens---I have some problems with them as well, at least when it comes to some of their more extreme and polemic and, yes, ill-informed, attacks on conventional religion and the existence of God. I don't know whether these people turn many others into atheists. I suspect they largely 'preach' to the already 'converted' non-believers. I wouldn't want to give them much more credit than that---certainly they don't deserve any.

Now, it’s not that I am against atheists or atheism. Not at all. By traditional definitions of God, I am an atheist, and I am proud of what I achieved when I was president of both the Humanist Society of New South Wales and the Council of Australian Humanist Societies. I am proud that I debated---in no ordinary or amateurish way---several prominent Sydney Anglican clerics (including a couple of bishops), exposing what I saw---and still see---as the weaknesses in their Christian apologetics, not to mention the corrupt version of Christianity which they present. I also found a couple of these clerics hopelessly duplicitous and disingenuous. They thought it was quite OK to lie for the sake of Jesus (cf 1 Cor 9:19-23). For example, I would meet with my opponent before the debate, and we would 'agree'---at least I thought we had reached an agreement---on how to debate the particular topic (eg the existence of God or the physical resurrection of Jesus) and on definitions (eg 'God'). However, during the debate I would often find my 'Christian' opponent turning their back on what we had agreed upon previously. They were certainly 'as shrewd as snakes' but in no way 'as gentle as doves' (cf Mt 10:16).

The truth is I dislike Sydney Anglicanism immensely. I see it as a horrible perversion of Christianity. The ultra-evangelical Sydney diocese---'Anglo-Baptists' some call them---is something of a laughing-stock in the worldwide Anglican communion---and rightly so. Sadly, the Sydney Anglican diocese is the only one in Australia which is growing. That is, or should be, a real concern to all who value religious, political and intellectual freedom, freethought, liberal religion and the separation of church and state. Now, for many years I was active as a Freemason---a movement known for its religious naturalism and religious indifferentism---and once in the particular lodge to which I belonged I was discussing---over dinner---the subject of Sydney Anglicanism with another lodge member who was a devout high-church Anglican layman from a rural diocese. I said to the other Mason, 'You know, we're not suposed to be discussing religion in the lodge,' to which he replied, 'We're not. We're discussing Sydney Anglicanism.' I like that.

I mentioned above that, technically speaking, I am an atheist. Yes, that's true enough, but at times I have also referred to myself as being a panentheist, which I see as the noblest and most mature concept of God described in the New Testament. The essence of panentheism is this---God is in all things, and all things are in God, but not all things are God. Also, whilst all that is can be said in a fundamental sense to be God, that is not all that there is of God. God is still much bigger than the sum total of all that has its being in God, for God is Be-ing (or, if you like, Be-ness) itself. Now, you may not know this, but the Bible does not present just one concept or idea of God. In many ways, there is an evolving concept of God. We have the vengeful, tribal God of the ancient Hebrews---the God that does not really exist except in certain people's troubled minds---then there are images of an almost pantheistic God in, for example, the Psalms, then there's the near absence or 'eclipse' of God in books such as Ecclesiastes, and in the New Testament we get various more mature concepts of God---as Love, the Spirit of Life, and so on. Be all that as it may let it be known and widely celebrated that atheism (which refers to the absence---and not necessarily the denial---of theistic belief) is not, in itself, a bad thing and---at the risk ,of sounding patronising (which is not my intention)---it can even be a very good thing. Yes, positive atheism is, or at least can be, an inspiring, sensible and courageous philosophy and life stance. However, the ‘new atheists’ are dangerous people. They are fundamentalists, and they are militant.

First, the ‘new atheists’ are fundamentalists because:
• they are utterly convinced of the ‘fundamentals’ of their position and their arguments---which is the very essence of the wicked and scary ideology known as fundamentalism!
• their assertions all too often are a facile attack on a form or religious belief that we all hate and which, in any event, is a perversion and corruption of true religious belief
• they are all too often childishly unaware and ignorant of the true nature of world affairs, the latter ordinarily being much more complex than that espoused in their simple-minded two-dimensional worldview
• they demonise whole peoples, especially Muslims and evangelical Christians
• they are rigid, inflexible, dogmatic and----yes---narrow-minded in their thinking, for just as the Christian fundamentalist divides the world into the 'saved' (or 'churched') and the 'unsaved' (or 'unchurched'), so the fundamentalist atheist divides people up into the 'rational' and the 'irrational,' the 'enlightened' and the 'unenlightened' (the latter being those who believe in God as well as such things as fairies, elves and angels---they are always included as well, for the sake of ridicule), thus embracing a belief-system that is as puerile, intolerant, chauvinistic and bigoted as that of religious fundamentalists (whether Christian, Jewish, Islamic or otherwise)
• their approach is to ridicule, belittle and---as already mentioned---demonise
• they see only one truth – their version of 'rationalistic truth' – with all other values, worldviews and belief-systems being dismissed as mere 'fantasy' and 'superstition'
• just like Christian, Jewish and Islamic fundamentalists they impose upon sacred scripture an artificial construct, and a rigid ideology, that shows a complete ignorance of the Bible, the Qur’an and other sacred texts, and they cannot distinguish between religious myth and factual narrative
• like Christian fundamentalists, in particular, they are out to convert others to their point of view and posess an evangelical and obsessive zeal to proselytise
• they are simplistic, often naïve, and anti-intellectual, rejecting intellectual investigations into the true nature of religion, the various world religions, and the various reasons (social, cultural and otherwise) why people hold and maintain religious beliefs and views.
 

Secondly, the New Atheists are militant because:
• they are driven by a hatred and hostility toward any kind of religion ... without distinction
• they rightly attack a repugnant version of religion but use it to condemn all religion
• they blame God, or all religious people, for the sins of irrational religion and religious zealots
• they blame a ‘straw God’ for all the ills and evils in the world – for example, Dawkins self-servingly 'defines' the ‘God’ in which he disbelieves as follows: ‘He not only created the universe; he is a personal God dwelling in it, or perhaps outside it (whatever that might mean), possessing the unpleasantly human qualities to which I have alluded’ [emphasis added] – now, only a fool would believe in such a god!
• they generalise ad nauseam about religion, but they are, in fact, evangelists for their own peculiar form of secular religion, with a few of them even advocating the use of extreme violence (including murder) against certain religious extremists who they regard as being the enemies of civilization – these so-called enemies of civilization ‘should be beaten and killed and defeated, and I don’t make any apology for it’ (Christopher Hitchens).

The ‘new atheists’ are, as already mentioned, dangerous people. At times, they are totally irrational in their attacks upon religion and religious people. They tend to overstate their case. They often misunderstand the nature of religious faith. They are woefully ignorant of religion and theology, and they are fanatics---something which is always a worry. Some of them have even advocated the use of violence, even extreme violence, against other human beings.

The really sad thing about these so-called ‘new atheists’ is that there is absolutely nothing ‘new’ about either them or their 'teachings' at all. For the most part, their books just rehash dry, tired old British rationalism of the 19th century---which itself was based on outmoded thinking and thought forms even way back then. My good friend, John Zerilli, who is a philosopher, lawyer and writer---and, I am very proud to say, a former law student of mine (and one of the very best I had the pleasure to teach)---has written in his insightful book The Economic Imperative, ‘[Richard] Dawkins is epistemologically trapped somewhere between Pisa and Paris, somewhere between 1600 and 1650 AD.’

Exactly. This man Dawkins knows next to nothing about religion, theology and related topics. If ever there was a solid argument against having a state Church one need only look at Great Britain. The Church of England, in Britain, is almost dead---which may well turn out to be a damn good thing. Some 70 or more years ago, one Dr Henry Wilson, then the Anglican Bishop of Chelmsford, declared that Christianity in England was crumbling, and was then only a minority religion. Wilson wrote that Christianity was ‘hanging by a thread in this country.’ That was 70 or more years ago. Well, since then someone ‘jerked the thread,’ so to speak, such that the Church of England is today little more than rubble in the not-so-great Great Britain. What has that got to do with Dawkins, Hitchens and the like, you may well ask? Well, everything. Only a church which promulgated utter nonsense---with the blessing of the State---could have produced a theological waste land and an intellectual vacuum which provided such a fertile breeding ground for the spawning of a militant and highly toxic form of atheism.

So, who or what is God? Well, Fosdick pointed to the New Testament descriptions of God as both Love (cf 1 Jn 4:8) and Spirit (cf Jn 4:24), the latter referring to the very livingness of life itself, that is, the ground of being. I endorse those ideas. I also love the New Testament description of a God ‘in whom we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28). Now, that is a very ‘big’ God indeed, but this is also true---in each one of us God lives and moves and has its being. That's why Jesus told us that the kingdom of God is within us (cf Lk 17:21). Great stuff. However, no matter how we conceive of God, the reality of God will always be so much bigger. Ultimately, God is Mystery---and not just a mystery.

Look around you, and what do you see? Living things living out their livingness. And it seems self-evident to me that the life which lives out its livingness in and as you is the very same life which lives out its livingness in and as me. I take that to be self-evident and axiomatic. Others may not do so, but that is their choice. For me, all life is interconnected and interdependent, although I reject strict monism and the so-called Gaia hypothesis. And another thing we see all around us---life constantly gives of itself, to itself, in order to perpetuate itself. Is that self-givingness of life nothing other than love in action?

There you have it. Life, Truth and Love---God, if you wish. Of course, there is so much sin, sickness, suffering and evil in the world---so much that it seems like there is no God at all. However, those who have a sensible understanding of God know that God is a verb---not a noun. God is something we do. The presence of so much sin, sickness, suffering and evil in the world is a constant everyday reminder to all of us, not that there is no God, but rather just how much 'God-ing' remains to be done---by you, me, and the rest of us. Yes, in the words of Fosdick quoted near the start of this post, 'we still have the universe on our hands' so let's all get on with the monumental task of being God to each other---and to our broken world.

Are you an atheist? If so, I am not trying to turn you into something else, let alone an orthodox heist---heaven forbid! We must reject all this nonsense that you have to believe in a conventional God in order to be a ‘moral’ and ‘decent’ (whatever that might mean) human being. That’s crap, but it’s the sort of crap regularly promulgated by the Christian churches which has helped produce the current lot of ‘new atheists’ and their many followers. It’s all rather sad---indeed, quite pathetic. However, until the mainstream Christian churches discover the real God of the Bible---the one I have referred to above---we will see more and more people identifying as atheists. That may not be a bad thing. At least in time we may see the death of mainstream Christianity (along with the other two major monotheistic religions), which would not, in my submission, be a bad thing, for out of the combined ashes there might arise, Phoenix-like, a new understanding of the All-in-all and of what it means to have one’s being in God. We can only hope---and pray.

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MINDFULNESS, FUNDAMENTALISM AND A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Here’s an uplifting story from MinnPost about famed Zen priest and drummer Marc Anderson (pictured opposite) who teaches mindfulness, and presents workshops on meditation, to aid and improve communication, compassion, teamwork and mindfulness among corporate executives, management teams, NPOs, health professionals and others. He's been doing those things for at least 30 years.

Anderson, who is also an adjunct professor in the Anthropology department at Hamline University in St Paul, Minnesota, now wants to teach meditation in public schools across the ‘Twin Cities’ of Minneapolis and St Paul. (That reminds me of a story Groucho Marx once told an audience whilst on a bond tour during World War II. Groucho said, 'I knew a girl in Minneapolis. She was also known in St Paul. She used to come over to visit me. She was known as "The Tail of Two Cities".' Forgive me, I digress.)

Yes, teaching mindfulness in public and private schools is a great idea, and I am pleased that more and more of that is taking place in Australian schools. My only fear – and it is a real one – is that Christian fundamentalists in the so-called ‘Land of the Free and Home of the Brave’ will exclaim, if they haven't done so already, ‘You are teaching Buddhism and atheism in our schools – that is religion. You can’t do that!’ They’ve done it before with evolution and just about everything else that is progressive and sensible.

To them, I say, ‘Get a life ... and get real. We are not talking about religion here, but people being awake and attentive, and becoming better communicators, listeners and negotiators ... among other things.’

In any event, a strong case can be made that Buddhism, especially in its more traditional forms, is not a 'religion'. Come to think of it, neither is Christian fundamentalism, which, unlike Buddhism, is an ideology. No, I shouldn't say that, not because it isn't true, but because the Christian fundamentalists will then retort, 'Well, if it is an ideology, and not a religion, we should be able to teach it in public schools.' As the already-quoted Groucho Marx once quipped, ‘Believe me, you have to get up early if you want to get out of bed.’

Life is a battle at the best of times, and we are all living in a new Dark Age of crass materialiam on the one hand and silly but dangerous fundamentalism on the other. That's why we all need to live ... mindfully. Bless you all ... even the fundies.

NOTE. This blog sets out a simple form of mindfulness sitting meditation.

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