8 Ways Not to Think About Meditation

June 3, 2015 // Barry

Meditation is really just sitting in awareness.

In Zen, meditation is about sitting, standing, or walking in total awareness. Steve Hagen, Lead teacher at the Dharma Field Zen Center in Minneapolis, MN and author of the best book on meditation I’ve ever read, Meditation Now or Never, puts it this way:

“Meditation, and it’s Japanese translation ‘Zen,’ is the practice of awareness, openness, and direct experience of here and now.

That’s what we need to know about meditation. It’s not about becoming more relaxed, healthy or even enlightened. In fact, the moment we think we’re going to get something out of meditation, we take ourselves out of the meditation mindset.

How Not to Think About Meditation

1. Meditation isn’t about relaxation

It’s easy to see how this is a common misconception. When we sit calmly and observe our breath, it’s almost a given that we will encounter a more relaxed state of mind and body. But that isn’t meditation.

Meditation is simply the observation of what’s going on around us while we sit and observe in total awareness. It’s not about being zoned out or emptying our mind; if anything, meditation is the exact opposite.

We allow observable phenomena such as sound, sensation, points of pressure, pain, etc. to be observed when they arise, but we also allow them to pass as we refocus attention on the breath.

While we may feel more relaxed after a meditation session, it isn’t the goal and, I can tell you from personal experience, there are times when meditation doesn’t induce relaxation. Most of the time meditation perpetuates the mood and mindset that we bring into the session.

If I’m feeling frustrated before meditation, I’ll feel frustrated during and after.

2. Meditation isn’t about lowering your blood pressure

Most of the peaceful photos and memes we commonly see that depict meditation include some sort of serene, natural environment; we imagine calm pools of water and a cooling breeze gently blowing.

I’ve never experienced a meditation session in such an environment. I’ve meditated outside before but the calm serenity of such a scene is only half of the picture. There are also traffic noises, birds singing, dogs barking, the noise of busy traffic, loud trucks, and honking horns vying for my attention. As one who has a diagnosis of essential hypertension, I can tell you that none of these factors lower my blood pressure. I rely on medication and exercise for that.

Conversely, meditation is when we passively observe the frenetic manner in which our minds work. At times, it can be anything but calming and serene. Although the medical and psychological benefits of a regular meditation practice are well documented, it isn’t a substitute for the treatment of hypertension nor should any benefit in that area be expected.

3. Meditation isn’t an anger management tool

When was the last time you saw a angry Buddhist monk? Probably never, right? That’s most likely because they’ve spent years deep in disciplined spiritual practice and they know that anger is a momentary choice to act on base desires. This isn’t to say that monks don’t experience anger; They’re just as human and you and I. The difference is they’ve learned how to better manage their anger. But this is not meditation.

Meditation isn’t an anger management tool, although it can, over time, decrease our reactive nature to the hot buttons we all possess. I have an anger button that can become pushed by insensitive people on occasion, but it no longer gets the best of me. I’ve learned over many years to interpret the offending situation, remark, or action of another before choosing my reaction. My meditation practice doesn’t prevent me from becoming angry.

I’ve learned to adopt the monk’s habit of interpreting the situation before reacting in anger. This is not unlike the meditation instruction in jails and prisons. The message is clear: anger is a reactive choice and it’s resulting actions aren’t prevented by meditation. The inmates who engage in meditation classes are, like me, learning how to delay their reaction to intense situations and choosing action with a clearer mindset.

4. Meditation isn’t a visualization experience

When you sit zazen, Japanese for sitting meditation, practice is a recurrent cycle of observing the mind, returning it to the here and now when it invariably wanders off in daydreams and thoughts tributaries that lead us away from the present.

Any visualization of nirvana, blissful states, or deep philosophical realizations are simply created by a distracted mind. They are momentary experiences only.

5. Meditation isn’t about inducing trance states

While there are types of meditation practices that are devoted to inducing a trans-like state, they are not zen meditation. On the Transcendental Meditation website, it is stated:

“Unlike other forms of meditation, TM practice involves no concentration, no control of the mind, no contemplation, no monitoring of thoughts.

The TM technique allows your mind to easily settle inward, through quieter levels of thought, until you experience the most silent and peaceful level of your own awareness — pure consciousness.”

My goal here is not to discredit TM. On the contrary, I learned TM while a Kriya Yoga initiate many years ago. But, it isn’t Buddhist meditation.

TM, and other forms of trance-inducing meditation, takes us away from the here and now and offers a temporary escape from whatever is bothering us. But when the trance is over our problems, like patient old friends, are still waiting for us in the here and now.

Zen meditation confronts our problems head on in the present. In zen, we don’t seek to escape the present, but engage it directly.

6. Meditation doesn’t provide a gateway to supernatural powers

I attended a meditation group last Thursday with the San Jose Dharma Punx. Stephanie, the guest teacher spoke of imagining ourselves as a Dharma Superhero. ‘Compassion Supergirl’ was her own ideal superhero superpowers of ultimate compassion. 😎

That’s a neat idea to think about, but it’s more application of dharma to our lives. In meditation we don’t seek revelation of superpowers from some ultimate Source; if anything, we might uncover our own Buddha nature on occasion and act on it throughout our lives.

The simplicity and beauty of meditation is that we are fully aware, in the present moment just as we are – problems and all. Anything less would feel pretentious, at least to me.

7. Meditation doesn’t provide for instant insight into your problems

Meditation is mind training, pure and simple. It’s observing the mind, bringing it back to the present moment each time it wanders. This aspect of meditation never changes. That can either be comforting or disappointing depending on your level of attachment to a preconceived outcome.

I use to have a friend that insisted she could arrive at answers to complex relationship problems in her life by sitting meditation. But if meditation exists as Zen masters have taught it throughout the centuries, I doubt that what my friend was experiencing was meditation; More likely she was engaged in focused concentration or problem solving.

In focused problem solving , we lose our place in the here and now and employ visualization to investigate potential outcomes. That isn’t zen, it’s problem solving. There is nothing wrong with problem solving as a practice, but it shouldn’t be confused with meditation.

8. Meditation isn’t the path to enlightenment

“OK, Baz….are you serious? How else am I supposed to become a Badass Buddha? If not on the cushion, how exactly does one become enlightened?”

Enlightenment is a myth. Ok, not really (just seeing if you’re still paying attention), but here in the West it’s taken on mythic proportions. There is a growing population of practitioners who think that publicly proclaiming one’s enlightenment is a good thing. They are interested in topics such as:

~ How advanced is your meditation practice?

~ How many times have you experienced satori?

~ What color is your robe?

Really? It’s not like there is a report card for how zen you are. How does one even measure such a concept?

Brad Warner’s post on Hardcore Zen is a good one in this regard. At the end of the post he writes:

“Claiming to have attained enlightenment or some special meditational level is an entirely useless claim to make. It means less than nothing. It tells me only that the person making the claim thinks very highly of himself. Big deal.”

Seeking enlightenment isn’t the goal of meditation. In fact, seeking it at all is silly. It’s not part of our meditation practice on a day-to-day basis. Satori, the Japanese word for enlightenment, is often used to describe a rapid realization and understanding of reality. It’s momentary and often arrives without warning; it is fleeting and impermanent.

Warner makes a good case for this by quoting the Heart Sutra, saying that there is nothing to attain. Attainment of anything is transient.

I once had a colleague who I often jogged with and she liked saying that was no reservoir for fitness. That’s true, there isn’t. Likewise, when you attain a 7th degree Black Belt in Karate, unless you use it often, what does that level really mean anymore?

Experiencing enlightenment doesn’t mean you will be forever changed and live on a plane of existence above others for the rest of your life.

Enlightenment may be as fleeting as the sunset, but the meditation cushion is our constant refuge; a place where the world meets the mind and our training is continued day by day.

How to Kick Suffering in the Ass

September 26, 2014 // Barry

This is a guest post from my alter ego – Baz, the Badass Buddhist.

Suffering sucks, man!

And you need to kick its sorry ass to the curb. Take it from me, I know. For years I felt sorry for myself because my marriages failed, because I didn’t have all the stuff I wanted to have in my life, and a million other petty thoughts that really got in the way of living my life.

I mean, what a f*cking waste! I spent days whining about my situation. Those are days that I’ll never get back!

It’s a bad habit and you need to kick it

I realized that the Buddha -the original badass- was so right. You know, when he said that suffering -that negative, sorry-ass energy that we all get caught up in- is nothing more than a bad habit?

We continually attach our minds to either past memories of how life used to be or we’re wasting time dreaming of some future life that we want to be.

All the while we’re missing out on the what’s happening here and now. The present moment.

We’re trained from the time we can’t even see over the seat of our old man’s motorcycle that we’re not good enough, that we’re imperfect and in need of redemption of some kind. As a result, we spend our whole lives searching for a way to be good enough and suffering from low self-esteem and a total lack of self-worth in the process for decades.

That’s what sufferings like. And it’s not only running your life but ruining it, too.

Stop being a victim and make suffering your bitch

You don’t have to let suffering run your life, you know. Suffering is totally optional. Instead of spending your life worrying, whining, dreaming, and lusting after whatever pie-in-the-sky pipe dream you’ve attached yourself to, kick it to the curb. Get real about waking up to the reality of the present moment.

The here-and-now beats the sh*t out of some-days any day of the week.

Spend time each day just sitting in silence and noticing how your mind works. Use a cushion, ride the highway, walk along the beach…whatever works. Just do it. Do it every day for a month and see how clearer your mind becomes.

Meditating totally kicks suffering’s ass

Tired of this yet? Good. If you’re ready to stop being the victim of your past-regrets and someday-dreams and want to start living in the present, do yourself a favor and subscribe to the updates here.

Live like the Badass Buddha that you are!

Peace, out.

Fist

7 Principles for Living an Awakened Life

August 30, 2014 // Barry

Yesterday I was reading my Kindle version of Lodro Rinzler’s book, Walk Like a Buddha. I was reading a section where a reader had asked Lodro how to deal with her Ex who insisted that she wasn’t a ‘real Buddhist’ because she didn’t attend a Buddhist Temple or sangha.

In his response to this question, he first argued for not using a label at all, stating that the Buddha never called himself a Buddhist. Instead, the Buddha referred to himself as ‘one who is awakened,’ After stating his overall opinion about labels, he then listed seven things that every follower of the Buddha should have in their lives.

I read these and thought about them and present them below as they pertain to Practical Buddhism.

7 Practical Buddhist Principles for Living an Awakened Life

1. Have a connection to a mindfulness-awareness practice

A connection to a mindfulness-awareness practice is essential for any Buddhist. It’s most common form is mindfulness meditation that I’ve described here and in my book. It’s hard to call ourselves Buddhists if we aren’t regularly working with our mind. After all, meditation is the only time in the day where we can train our mind to appropriately encounter the rest of the day. The whole idea behind meditation is that it helps us see the causes of our suffering and, by becoming aware of them, chart a course for ending it. If we aren’t practicing meditation, are we truly a Buddhist?

2. Seek further awakening and enlightenment

In my experience, awakening occurs when you realize that suffering, confusion, and operating on autopilot are all optional. I came to this realization after operating in a state of murky confusion about life, religion, and happiness for decades. Once I awoke to the reality that life didn’t have to be lived like I’d been told it should be, everything changed – my attitude, my outlook, my refusal to be a slave to my psychic and spiritual narrators. Seeking further awakening is what I do when I meditate when I engage in mindfulness check-ins (I use an Android app to sound a bell every two hours as a reminder to check in with my body and my mind), and when I read dharma books by authors I appreciate.

3. Learn something

I just mentioned reading dharma books in #2 above. This is a great way to expand your awareness and learn more about what it means to live the Buddhist lifestyle. In addition to Walk Like a Buddha, books I recommend are Buddhism Is Not What You Think, Meditation Now or Never, Buddhism Plain and Simple, Buddha Standard Time, The Miracle of Mindfulness, Making Space, and Buddhism Without Beliefs. I also subscribe to Youtube channels for Lodro Rinzler, Sakyong Mipham, and Pema Chodron. The Internet is literally your access to the world for dharma materials of all kinds.

4. Learn from fellow practitioners

Even if we don’t have a teacher from an established lineage of traditional Buddhism, we can still learn from other Buddhist practitioners. Dharma materials, podcasts, and meeting with other Buddhist practitioners are suggestions. I recently posted to Craigslist in my area offering participation in an informal discussion group over coffee for like-minded practitioners. I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to attend a Buddhist Temple where established rituals and traditions are in full observance. You may enjoy that kind of community and it you do, that’s great. We all need to find the community, online or off, that resonates with us and allows us to learn from the experience of others.

5. Try not to cause harm

I abhor violence. It’s destructive to everything it encounters. But intentional violence isn’t the only way we cause harm. We cause harm to our environment, to our bodies, to our relationships, and to our belongings. Doing harm can be insidious and creeps into our lives in the form of embarrassing others unintentionally, casually bypassing an object on the sidewalk without removing it thereby endangering others who might pass by, or purposely not letting that other car into your lane on the roadway. When we look for ways we are doing harm we can also see how we can stop engaging in it. The awareness of how we cause harm is often a fruit of living an awakened life.

6. Do some good for the world

Lodro writes:

The Buddha could have sat under the bodhi tree content to believe that none of us schmucks would really be able to understand his teachings, Instead he got up and went about trying to lead everyone he encountered toward awakening.”

Just as the Buddha felt led to positively impact the world by teaching the dharma, so should we do some good for the world around us. The Buddha probably didn’t envision the worldwide impact of his teachings, but instead focused on those he encountered in his daily life. Similarly, I feel the need to write about what I learn, think and do here on this site as it pertains to the dharma practice. Perhaps, if the Buddha lived in our time, he’d be a writer and teacher online, hosting videos, writing books, appearing on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, etc., all in order to do some good for the world. That’s actually kind of funny, but if you think about it, that’s what the Buddha did…in his time and in his way.

In addition to writing, recycling waste that would otherwise contaminate landfills and spoil our environment is a personal and important mission for me. I recycle more by volume than I place in a trash can. It comprises another way I can do some good for the world. Even a little effort in this regard can make a huge difference and I urge you to consider taking up this cause even if your waste provider doesn’t support it. It’s easy to do some good for the world when you make up your mind to take action.

7. Consider meditation practice a practice for life

“The Buddhist path is one of change through working with your own mind and heart.” ~Lodro Rinzler

Meditation is the foundation upon which your Buddhist lifestyle rests. If your commitment to meditation isn’t a practice for life, what it is? A hobby? One of the most effective ways to help yourself in this regard is to set up a primary location in your home where you meditate. In my bedroom, I have a zabuton (meditation mat) with a half-moon shaped zafu (meditation cushion) that rests on it. This area has become a visual reminder each time I go into my bedroom that my meditation mat and cushion are waiting for me. It reminds me of my commitment to meditation as a daily practice.

Thich Nhat Hahn, in his book, Making Space: Creating a Home Meditation Practice, suggests we make an altar in our home. The altar isn’t for worshipping and praying, but to remind us of the sacred nature of, and personal commitment to, meditation and the heart-mind work that lays before us.

So, are you a Practical Buddhist?

Actually, it doesn’t matter what you are or what you call yourself. Going back to the beginning of this post, I said that Lodro called into question the whole idea of a Buddhist label. And he’s right, there is no label necessary. In reality, there is no list of requirements or precepts to keep in Practical Buddhism.

I know that you have a Buddha nature inside whether or not you realize it. I honor your life and your commitment to mediation, mindfulness and compassionate kindness.

Welcome to Zen-Journal.com

August 11, 2014 // Barry

Here we aim to help you blur the line between your time on and off the meditation cushion. I’m Barry, the author of The Practical Buddhist and creator of the Zen-Journal Task Management System. My mission is to create a worldwide movement of awakened individuals better able to change the world.

It begins by blurring the line

Each of us can change the world by spending time on the cushion changing ourselves, but we can carry our insights gained on the cushion to our place of business and everywhere we go. My aim is to help you blur the line between your work life and your life’s work.

As Stephen Batchelor, author of the brilliant but brief book, Buddhism Without Beliefs, wrote:

There is nothing particularly religious or spiritual about this path. It encompasses everything we do. It is an authentic way of being in the world.”

Practical Buddhism is not a religion, but a way of being in the world. Being in the world is very different from observing religious doctrine, dogma, and beliefs. Religion relies on the truths established in an earlier time by persons not encountered by the observer/believer. Practical Buddhism relies on one’s own experiential knowledge to determine what is true.

Practical Buddhism is the reemergence of classical Buddhist life. It takes the robes and ritual out of daily life and focuses on the experience of living mindfully and compassionately reinforced by daily meditation.

The following posts are an introduction to a better way of bing in the world…

The Four Noble Truths

Excerpted from my book, The Practical Buddhist

2,600 years ago, a former prince who purposely left his life of leisure to discover the truths of everyday life, began a movement that started with these four simple truths of existence. His name was Siddartha but when he experienced his awakening, his followers called him the Buddha, or the ‘one who is awake.’

Noble Truth #1: Life is characterized by a basic sense of dissatisfaction; like a cart with one wheel out of kilter.

Some refer to this as suffering. But you don’t always suffer in the classic sense, do you? A better, more apt translation of duhkah, the Sanskrit word most often translated as suffering, is ‘out of kilter.’ Here’s an effective way to relate to duhkah.

Imagine you’re riding in a wooden-wheeled cart with one of the wheels slightly out of true. You’re getting where you want to go, but not without a regular and uncomfortable wobble produced by the wheel that’s out of true. Although it might be interesting or slightly amusing at first, you’d soon grow tired of the repetitive up-down-wiggle, up-down-wiggle, up-down-wiggle.

Click to read now!

The Eight-Fold Path

The path to end all suffering, part 2

Excerpted from my book, The Practical Buddhist

“The Eight-fold Path is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things.”

The Eight-fold Path is not a physical journey with a starting point or a destination. There are no steps to follow. Instead, the Path is a set of guidelines to keep in mind as you experience your life; it provides a set of questions to ask during each moment of our lives, such as:

Am I holding the appropriate view given what I do and do not know?
Is my intention appropriate?
Are the words I’m using appropriate?
Is the action I’m taking appropriate?

The eight-fold path is the fourth noble truth in action. It’s the path we can traverse in order to face the present moment as it presents itself. The Buddha taught that there was no need to wait for some promised future life when everything was bliss; instead, he taught that we can experience moments of bliss each and every day by traversing the eight-fold path.

Click to read now!

7 Practical Buddhist Principles for Living an Awakened Life

Yesterday I was reading my Kindle version of Lodro Rinzler’s book, Walk Like a Buddha. I was reading a section where a reader had asked Lodro how to deal with her Ex who insisted that she wasn’t a ‘real Buddhist’ because she didn’t attend a Buddhist Temple or sangha.

I read these and thought about them and present them below as they pertain to Practical Buddhism.

Click to read now!

How 3 Simple Practices Can Eliminate Suffering

Suffering is always something we choose. So stop already.

“Just as a map isn’t the same as the journey it illuminates, neither is meditation, mindfulness, or compassionate kindness the same as enlightenment.” -barry

Meditation alone cannot eliminate suffering. Neither can the practice of mindfulness, or the active process of enacting compassionate kindness. But when practiced together, they can.

I know this sounds far-fetched and you’re most likely a little skeptical. That’s OK. Let’s dive a little deeper into the subject, shall we?

Click to read now!

PS. If this interests you, please check out my book, The Practical Buddhist.

Why I Practice Buddhism, Don’t Attend Church, and Don’t Hold Any Beliefs

August 8, 2014 // Barry

This looks very similar to the church I was raised in.

I’ve worked on this post for a while now. Each time I write about this topic, and it’s a topic that I’ve written about before, I pause to consider whether or not I’m doing so in a manner that’s respectful.

As time passes (and I get older and hopefully wiser) I develop more understanding and cultivate a greater degree of compassion. My desire, especially when discussing topics of religion and politics, is to maintain an awareness of how much compassion I am engaging in. As always, my goal is to present my thoughts in a way that anyone can read and process, regardless of their religious convictions.

With this in mind, I’ve written this post about why I practice Buddhism, no longer attend church, and hold no beliefs.

Why I Practice Buddhism

I was raised as a Christian, graduated from a Christian university, and attended a Protestant seminary for a brief time. I used to believe everything that most Christians believe today. I understand the pressure that thinking Christians experience when they raise questions about creationism, miracles, the virgin birth, the raining down of frogs, and the great flood.

My experiences in the church give me a solid understanding of the precepts, principles, and stories that most Christians take on face value as divinely inspired by God and recorded by men.

There is simply no room for questioning within most Christian sects. If you question the veracity of the Bible you are shunned. If you raise questions that make people uncomfortable, you are ridiculed and excluded from future club activities.

I was once one of these well-meaning, God-fearing people. I thought it was the absolute truth and lived accordingly to the best of my ability, which, as it turns out, I wasn’t very good at doing.

Then, I experienced a spiritual awakening

This awakening occurred after 1) I saw the underbelly of the professional ministry and the depths that some in that field will go in order to control the behavior of others, 2) I realized that I could no longer reconcile my scientific education and awareness with the claims of the Bible, especially when it came to the age of the earth, and 3) It became clear that no Christian authority could be honest enough to say, “I don’t know.”

There is a Buddhist saying, ‘Always don’t know.’ This is an exhortation to always have an open, questioning mind.

My spiritual awakening wasn’t a mystical experience whereby I felt waves emotional need based on my level of depravity. It was an opening of my eyes via the reasoned use of logic over a period of years.

My Christian experience

You might be surprised to know that in my time inside the church, I was a prayer warrior, a lay preacher, a counselor at the Billy Graham Crusade, a Sunday School teacher, a musical evangelism team member and….still I was plagued with doubts.

I had doubts about everything contained in the Bible from the contradictory accounts in the first two chapters of Genesis to the wildly fluctuating life expectancies of some Old Testament populations (Moses was 900+ years old when he died) that apparently appeared without population precursors and disappeared from the gene pool instantly.

I had serious doubts about the morality of a God that drowned the unborn, the mentally ill, the deaf, the mute, the blind, and millions of innocent children by flooding the earth. I thought it odd that Noah could house, feed, and process waste for every kind of animal and bird in his ark with one window. Talk about a carbon footprint issue.

I thought I was the only one to have these doubts. But I now know that it’s a ubiquitous issue common to most, if not all, believers. I was only one of the hundreds of millions of Christians who experienced doubt.

But the culture to remain quiet was and still remains quite strong. My first marriage eventually ended because of my doubts about the faith. Unfortunately, most Christians are too afraid to confront their fears for fear of family rejection and the loss of friendships and never explore the world outside their own Christian community.

My awakening set me free

I was freed of the false claims, doubt, and guilt that pervaded my life, not because of original sin or my own wrongdoing, but the false notion that I could never measure up to the role model as demonstrated by the God I described above.

I realized that the Christian and religious culture within which I was raised was one founded not on demonstrable proof backed by logic and reason, but a culture that absolutely required me to relinquish my logic and reason forever and believe whatever I was told.

In Buddhism I found freedom

I practice Buddhism, specifically Practical Buddhism, because (in no particular order):

It doesn’t include any deity
It isn’t based on willful ignorance
It helps me exercise mindfulness
It helps me cultivate compassion
It doesn’t require faith in an unproven system of beliefs
It doesn’t require me to abandon my use of reason, logic, and common sense

I find that meditation helps me become more compassionate and mindful in everyday life. That alone makes me a better, more loving and complete human being. I don’t need any ancient texts, creeds, or principles to help me live a moral, meaningful life.

The sutras (teachings) of the Buddha, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eight-Fold Path are all recommendations for Buddhists, but none are to be taken at face value.

The Buddha didn’t claim to be anything other than a man who experienced enlightened and who taught others how to live a better life.

Why I don’t attend church

In my experience, to attend church one usually possesses or experiences some level of spiritually-perceived need for redemption and/or a desire to believe in God. I feel no such need. Since I no longer hold any beliefs, especially in the existence of a supernatural being, attending church isn’t an activity I support.

I have children who attend church with their families and take on leadership roles where they attend. I have a son who graduated from a conservative seminary with a Master’s degree and is employed in a mega-church in South Carolina. My daughter is also a follower of Christ and attends church with her family in Ohio where my son-in-law serves as an officer in the U.S. Air Force.

I have two other sons, both adults, who neither attend church nor hold any specific beliefs about God, an afterlife or the Bible as a book to live by. Each of my children has formed their own view of the cosmos and lives accordingly.

As long as each of us can respect the choices the others have made, I don’t see there needs to be a problem. I realize that I can only walk my own path and seek not to change the paths of others.

Here’s an excerpt from my book, The Practical Buddhist that speaks about my overall experiences within Christianity and Kriya Yoga:

Raised as a fundamentalist Christian, educated in institutions steeped in the traditions of the ultra-conservative Southern Baptist Convention, and later initiated into Kriya Yoga by a direct disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda, you could say my quest to find a spiritual basis for personal meaning and fulfillment has been significant.

Yet these experiences (graduating from a Christian university, studying for a year in a post-graduate Protestant seminary, and later studying Kriya Yoga) only led me further from reality.

My experiences within the Christian church and later in Kriya Yoga convinced me that I was still required to adopt someone else’s version of truth. I came to realize that just because someone said something is true, doesn’t make it so.

I saw first-hand how most people’s definition and interpretation of religion is superficial at best and crumbles under the mildest scrutiny. And so, as the years have passed, I came to see that religion is not something I can personally endorse. Rather than a path to self-discovery, growth, and happiness, my own direct experiences have proven it to be a hindrance in almost every area of my life.

My quest is to understand this life, this moment, right here and right now. For me, Buddhism, when I free it from the ritual and robes, ceremony and other superficial trappings, provides a path for this understanding to be realized.

*I do attend a Thursday evening meditation group near where I live. It’s composed of others who also practice Buddhist meditation from a variety of traditions. I recommend that you find a meditation group that feels like a good fit for you. It’s a great way to learn about the Dharma from experienced teachers.

Why I hold no beliefs

Living without beliefs is liberating. It changes everything.

Beliefs, as I define them, are concepts that require us to exercise hope and faith regardless of their truthfulness and verifiability. Using that as my definition of belief, I can say that I hold no beliefs whatsoever. No amount of believing will transform a lie into a truth.

Nonsensical beliefs thrust on the young

In the western world, we encourage young children to believe all kinds of falsehoods. We take photographs of our children with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. We reward them monetarily for losing teeth using the myth of the Tooth Fairy.

Worldwide, we encourage them to believe that they were created by God, but apparently imperfectly. Because of the God’s failure to create perfectly, we convince them that they are in need of salvation via Jesus Christ.

With this kind of circular logic, is there any real question as to why we grow up plagued by doubts about God, the church, and the Bible?

Beliefs poison everything

I’m borrowing that phrase, in part, from the late Christopher Hitchens, who made the claim that religion poisons everything. I fully agree. One has only to look at the folly of talking heads such as Pat Robertson, the anti-semitic Billy Graham, and false prophets like Hal Lindsay for evidence. The sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic church was covered up for decades. This type of abuse isn’t solely confined the Catholic church. Sexual abuse occurs everywhere but it is abhorrently heinous when it occurs inside organizations that preach trust, sanctity, and chastity.

Again, here is an excerpt from my book that hopefully clarifies why I live without beliefs and see them as harmful:

A belief is exclusionary. To adopt a belief is to exclude all other possibilities.

Not only are beliefs, by their nature exclusionary, but they are also not based on experience. You may say you believe in gravity, but I’d counter that you’ve experienced it instead. You may say that you believe in love or hunger but again, I’d say that you experienced them.

Do you believe in something you haven’t experienced?

Personal Experience

For years I felt my life was devoid of meaning. I’d write in my journal about the big questions:

~ Is God real?

~ What do I believe?

~ Do these beliefs serve me?

~ Am I better off without my beliefs?

~ Am I willing to take a stand for what I discover?

~ If I am a child of God, then why do I feel guilty?

~ Why should I feel guilty if I’ve been redeemed by Christ?

~ How would my life change if I no longer was a believer?

~ Why do we raise our children to adopt our beliefs?

~ Are we afraid they will adopt the wrong ones?

~ What are the rights ones?

~ Are there any?

Over the years I came to the following conclusion:

Beliefs distract me from experiencing what’s real.

To fully accept one thing, you need to reject everything else. Alternatively, to experience something is to know it firsthand.

If you blindly accept 2 + 2 = 4, you don’t truely know it to be true. Without having two blocks set before you, adding two more, and them counting the resulting number you are accepting someone else’s version of this truth. It is only when first grader’s perform this tactile experiment that they experience how the resulting data is true.

I’ve experienced love, gravity, poverty, hunger, illness, joy, sadness, guilt, etc. I don’t need to form any beliefs about these topics to make them real.

When I find myself wanting to place faith in something I haven’t experienced, I have to pause and consider what I’m doing and ask myself whether this is an appropriate view.

Without exception, it is not.

My advice to those who still believe in a deity or attend church, synagogue, or mosque

If you are still attending church and engaging in exercising faith in things you can’t prove, I encourage you to begin questioning. Begin asking yourself why you believe what you do.

Inquiry isn’t wrong, nor is it a sin against your God. It’s an ability you were born with and unless you’ve relinquished your humanity, it is still accessible.

If you have children, are you aware that children raised in religious traditions have greater difficulty discerning fact from fiction as a young adult? Think of the stranger-than-fact fables they are forced to believe about Jonah living for three days in the belly of a fish, somehow immune to the digestive acids that make up this milieu; think about how they have to ignore the entire record of social progress as well as the global record of civil rights to buy into the belief that women are second-class citizens and that God sometimes condones slavery while at other times cautions against it.

I’m not making this up. It’s all in the Bible you carry around with you every day. It’s in the same book you read aloud to your children. Sure, it carries all the platitudes that eventually make their way on to Facebook and accumulate ‘likes’ from fellow-believers, but it also contains the tales of an amoral God that kills and destroys.

Where to begin

Where does one begin to question when your entire culture stands firmly against the process? One way to begin is to start a private journal like I did, where you can write down your thoughts, your questions, your doubts. You don’t have to know the answers to your questions, but getting them out of your head an on to paper or a computer screen can alleviate the pain of holding in these struggles.

Often, as in my case, the discovery of what’s true for you takes years to uncover. And if you’ve been indoctrinated with religion from an early age, it will be hard. I promise you it will the toughest decision you will ever make but the discovery of your personal truth is worth it.

But a word of warning about uncovering your personal truth and that is…

Dogma isn’t necessarily truth

You can’t just read this and say to me or yourself that you’ve arrived at your truth because you believe what you believe. That’s the lazy way out.

It’s the equivalent of stating, “God said it (which you can’t prove by the way) so I believe it.” Belief requires no action, no work, no inquiry, no doubt, and no tenacity. Belief is passive. Uncovering your truth is real work and it’s time-consuming.

But in the end, when you awaken to the reality that isn’t viewed through the lens of religion and dogma, you will find lasting peace and the absence of guilt and doubt.

How Christopher Hitchens Helped Me Meditate for 4.5 hours

July 28, 2014 // Barry 1 Comment

I know what you’re thinking

Christopher Hitchens, that eloquent, pragmatic, atheistic journalist and literary critic, is well…dead. And you’re right. Sadly, Mr. Hitchens succumbed to the sequela of esophageal cancer in December of 2011.

Here’s how it happened

I left home in Santa Cruz this morning at 06:30. I’m consulting for the next few weeks for a firm in Southern California and this morning, after working a week from home, I rode my minimally packed BMW 1150GS south along the Pacific Coast Highway.

As a matter of practice, I listen to music via some wonderful Bose earbuds while walking Buddy, cleaning the house, lifting weights, and riding my motorcycle. For today’s journey, I was set to engage a Jackson Browne playlist but the at the last minute changed my mind in favor of an audiobook.

The book in question was one of my favorite Hitchens’ works, God Is Not Great. I read the hardback and still have it in my bookcase despite a few #MinsGame donations that significantly scaled back my bookshelf contents. The audio-book was in my Audible.com account already and I thought the 8-hour listen time was perfect for the day’s riding.

While I have no problem discerning lyrics and chord progressions at 75 m.p.h. inside my full-face helmet, the spoken word, at least as recorded by Christopher Hitchens, proved a bit more difficult. I attempted to adjust the volume on my phone while riding and instead of boosting the volume, I somehow cut off the device altogether.

Destination, definitely known

I’m very destination oriented when I ride. I’d love to be the carefree motorcyclist that frequently stops to take gorgeous photos around every few bends in the road, but I simply am not. Although I did stop to take this photo today of my bike and James Dean, having stopped for fuel near the intersection where he died in a fiery crash in 1955.

Because of this destination oriented riding style, I was loathed to pull over and stop to adjust the phone settings. I made this decision because, 1) I don’t like stopping unless it’s for a good reason, and 2) see reason #1.

I rode on in relative silence; no music, no Jackson Browne…only my thoughts and the sound of air rushing by my helmet as well as the soft roar of my BMW. Then, a funny thing happened.

Meditating at 75 m.p.h.

I started meditating as I rode.

My body was mainly motionless, my eyes focused on the road with my transient thoughts arising and falling away like they do in a more formal meditation setting.

I can ride for about 90 minutes before I feel my aging knees start to stiffen. It’s then I look for an appropriate exit and take a break. I repeated this ride-meditate-rest pattern three times. Each meditation session was approximately 90 minutes and my rest periods about 20 minutes.

Each time I rode off the highway to a safe resting place, I doubted that I’d be able to meditate again so soon. But each time I was pleasantly surprised.

I can’t recall another time when I’ve meditated 4+ hours in one day. It was liberating.

Not a daily habit

I’m not of such naïveté to think I can do this every day. I don’t have the time in my current life to meditate for 4.5 hours each day. My meditation practice isn’t at that level…nor do I think that it should be.

Sitting meditation, or zazen, is not something I can physically sit through for any more than an hour at most. That’s where I am in my practice. I don’t feel it’s a strength or a weakness. It simply is.

In about a week’s time, I’ll be riding the 400 miles home to Santa Cruz. Perhaps I’ll have a different experience this time, or maybe it will be similar. Either way, it will be good.

However, on the return trip, I definitely think Jackson Browne will make an appearance. 😎