February 2, 2009
I’m worrying about my relationship with an old friend. It seems to be suffering because I no longer drink. Maybe that throws a wet blanket on everything. Because I don’t lose the thread of the conversation; I will follow but I don’t get lost in tangents, and am not bamboozled by ridiculous arguments. I don’t take the bait on those with near as much heat as I used to when I was similarly trashed. So maybe I’m just no fun to talk philosophy with anymore. Maybe I’ve grown too pedantic and teacherly and know-it-all.
I have caught myself lecturing a couple times. See, I discovered that with all his knowledge of Buddhism, Taoism and even the fringes of Jainism and Sikhism, he knows next to nothing about the central beliefs of Hinduism. He knows enough to mask his lack of knowledge and understanding, so he starts with “Which hinduism? Jains or Sikhs? The Bhagavad Gita? Isn’t that the battle on the Plain, where the Pandava clan . . .” blah, blah, blah. Yes, but what is the message of the Gita? What does Krishna say in it? No clue. See? Slippery fellow to talk to. He begins to make you feel like a heel for daring to suggest he hasn’t fully considered all the aspects of something (all the while insisting he knows nothing so you cannot have hurt his pride), but if you push at the structure, you realize it is a house of cards. And then he says, “Well yeah, I told you I don’t really know anything about all this stuff. I don’t really care about it, either. Just something to pass the time.”
So I was lecturing him a bit, because I wanted him to at least have the alternate, Sanatana Dharma, jnana yoga, Upanishad and Gita reality in his head, as something to contrast to his very negative, life-denying and judgmental mixed up combo of Buddhism and Calvinism he’s got right now. He’s tied together the Buddha’s view that all life is suffering and there are no actions that relieve the suffering permanently except detachment, with his father’s beliefs that this world is run by Satan. So he has pretty well programmed himself to see only the negative, only death, sickness, greed, dissolution, evil, etc. And he sees no hope for the world; he doesn’t believe in a redeeming savior, he is not really even seeing Buddha as a figure that helps pull the raft. Pretty hopeless. And he really hasn’t stressed much of the compassion. He doesn’t seem to remember that the Buddha was always laughing and smiling; he wasn’t walking around wailing and glum.
There also isn’t much room for action. There isn’t any point so why bother? On the one hand, humans got themselves into this mess and will have to get themselves out. On the other, he doesn’t believe in actually working toward that end. Or at least, he’s been going around in circles about that for the ten years I’ve known him, freely admitting it might be an excuse to avoid having to do anything. A decade is a pretty long time to be in the same place philosophically and spiritually. I devoutly pray I will not remain in the same place I am right now for 10 days, let alone 10 years.
Chapter 8 of the CU will help me along the path. It begins by saying that inside “this fort of brahman,” meaning our bodies, “There is a small lotus, a dwelling place. And in that lotus there is a space. That is what you should try to discover.” The space is smaller than an atom and larger than the galaxy. It does not age, is never sick, is not killed, does not die, and no evil attaches to it. It is the eternal, joyful, blissful part of us that we should seek to know.
February 3
In the CU 8.2 it says that you get whatever kind of heaven you want. A person who has fully found that space inside the lotus – “If such a person desires the world of fathers, by his intention alone fathers rise up. And securing the world of fathers, he rejoices.” Or the world of mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, perfumes and garlands, food and drink, singing and music, women – whatever he desires. Okay, so it is not heaven, it is here on earth. Once you know the true Self, you control Reality.
Then again . . . 8.3 is impenetrable. It says all the desires (real) are masked by (unreal) desires. Though real, they wear an unreal mask “for when someone close to him departs from the world, he doesn’t get to see him here.” But, all the things he desires but doesn’t get, he will get by going there, “. . . for these real desires, masked by the unreal, are located there.”
Where is “there”? Okay, it can’t be heaven, or after death, even though the example is a departed loved one, because of the context. We are talking about that lotus-space in the heart, the dwelling place of atman.
And 8.3.2-4 confirms by saying it is like a buried treasure; those who don’t know it is there will tramp over it every day, never realizing they are walking on gold. In the same way, the people and creatures use and go into their own hearts every day, they never suspect such power is right there. “The name of brahman is Real (satyam).” I note that because my novel is all about people deciding what is “real” and what is not – creating and sharing reality in that way. [Probability Moon by Nancy Kress].
This is interesting and I need to share it with Mara. 8.4 “Now, this self is a dike, a divider, to keep these worlds from colliding with one another.” Doesn’t it seem more like “to keep them from flowing into one another” than colliding? Either way, we can and will pass over the dike eventually, into where old age, illness, death and evil cannot follow.
Oh man, this is so cool! But to explain why it is so cool, I have to explain so much about the novel I’m reading. I wasn’t planning to, but I just got to the point where she (Kress) explains the most recent scientific theories about the quantum basis of thought, of human consciousness. Our understanding of how the mind works is still limited, but it has gotten far enough to tell us that our first idea, electromagnetism, is certainly occurring but does not explain everything that happens in the brain. The second idea, neurochemicals, transmitters, was a huge leap forward and explained so much more. We can now analyze and tinker with brain chemistry in a much more sophisticated way than with electicity or – I guess what was really first, plain old mechanics – just anatomy – open it up and chop something out and see what happened.
But even neurochemistry doesn’t explain it all. “The electrical impulse hits the presynaptic grid; it has a measurable, constant voltage, the same voltage across all neurons. But sometimes it causes a release of neurotransmitters and sometimes it doesn’t. The probablility of release varies from .17 to .62 depending on the kind of neuron. And no one really knows why.” (Kress 200:128)
See, the problem is this – why do we have thoughts with no external stimuli? That’s one of the problems. And why, given that constant electrical impulse, does the exact same stimulus only have a 17-62% chance of causing some mental reaction?
Because, maybe, we are dealing with quantum effects. Probability waves. At the end of every nerve synapse we have vesicular grids. Billions of them. They are what control how much neurotransmitter is released with each nerve impulse. “Paracrystalline vesicular grids are very small. They operate according to the laws of quantum physics. They can cause quantum events outside their energy barrier, because part of their quantum probability field lies there. More and more, it looks like that is how consciousness affects the brain. Through altering the prbability field. There’s no other way for a purely mental event, such as deciding to get up from your chair, to produce an effect in the natural world without violating the law of the conservation of energy.” P.275
And when you start talking quarks, you bring in quantum entanglement. This has so many implications I can’t think through them all right now. It applies directly to my belief that metaphor is the mind’s language, not linear, digital, binary code. But check out what the very next part of the CU 8th chapter says, that blew me away with its timing:
In 8.5.3 it mentions two rivers “in” a “land” of brahman, kind of like a metaphor for perfect bliss and joy. These rivers are called “the rivers of the heart.” So in 8.6 it says these rivers flow like or with the rays of the sun, like a long highway they traverse the worlds, the one “up there” and the one “down here.” When we sleep and dream peacefully, we have slipped into those rivers and been transported to the sun “up there.” No evil can disturb us because we aren’t even here, not “really.” When we die, we rise up along these same rays, with the sound OM. “No sooner does he think it than he reaches the sun.” That’s the line that really grabbed me. “It is the door to the farther world, open to those who have knowledge, closed to those who do not.” 8.7.4
Showing posts with label Buddhism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buddhism. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Sunday, March 16, 2008
2006 - First Two Months
This year's first entry begins with a little whining that provides some insight into how I was doing physically, and the challenges that my battle with chronic severe pain was posing.
January 23, 2006
What I really would like is to be chemical-free. To wake up every morning feeling rested and healthy and excited about the new day. Not limping in severe pain to the pill-bottle and counting the minutes until relief sets in. I’ve pretty much had it with depression, too. So today I’m going to get all my work done – all the stuff that is hanging over my head. And then I’m going to finish my Dad’s letter. I do have to run in and teach a class, and stop at the grocery store on my way home, but that still leaves me a lot of time to get things done around the house.
In short, I want myself back. I had that short window between the defense of my dissertation and the onset of shingles, where I saw a few glimpses. And then she’s been drifting away ever since. I know Jim wants her back, too. Not only have I been mopey, but he’s also been afraid to touch me, for fear of hurting me, though he recognizes that I’ve really needed to be touched.
Okay, already accomplished one task. It had been too long since I read Mary Douglas, so when I presented her analysis of the food laws in Leviticus, I got it sort of messed up, and my students almost got into a fight over whether or not some animals have cloven hooves. So I need to fix that for today, and will also revisit it quickly on Tuesday.
Rereading her, I’m struck again by how much sense she makes. Her basic argument is that none of the restrictions in Leviticus make sense if taken piece-meal. That all of those who try to explain food taboos without reference to the rest of the text will always fail, or introduce too many contradictory and confusing and complex concepts. That really it is quite simple and it is all present in the text. To understand food and other rules, one has only to understand the Jewish conception of the universe. It is split into holy and unholy, clean and unclean. And the basics are laid out in Genesis. God created the world in 3 basic parts; earth, sea, and air. And he made creatures to fit those parts, which walk, swim, or fly. Those animals that are clean are those which most closely fit or represent the category. Those considered unclean are those that mix categories, having features from more than one.
When one also considers the other laws, one sees that the idea of mixing is consistently seen as a bad, unclean, unholy thing. As she says, “We can conclude that holiness requires that individuals shall conform to the class to which they belong. And holiness requires that different classes of things shall not be confused.”
When one looks at orders such as that garments must not be made of mixed materials – I.e. not flax and wool, nor should you plow fields with more than one kind of seed, or let 2 types of cattle breed with one another. So, she says, the sexual laws, too, have less to do with morality than with holiness. A married person fits one category, a single another. A married person should not behave as a single one. Incest and adultery are wrong because they violate the rights of husbands and brothers.
Finally, she says, “If the proposed interpretation is correct, the dietary laws would have been like signs which at every turn inspired meditation on the oneness, purity, and completeness of God.”
To start from the beginning then. We are to strive toward Holiness, because that will bring us blessings. Not doing so will bring us curses. What is holiness? Separation, Completeness (witness all the injunctions against incomplete men or animals approaching the temple). Also, important activities were not to be left incomplete. And then Perfection, meaning conforming to the class or category. The word usually translated “perversion” is tebhel, which really means “mixing” or “confusion.” That says a lot right there.
Doesn’t this argument, this interpretation, make a lot more sense than either pious allegories or the claim that the Hebrew priests were simply law-crazy and made up a bunch of arbitrary rules? I think it makes more sense, too, than the medical and ecological explanations. The medical is that one can get trichinosis from uncooked pork, or improperly cooked pork. The ecological is that pigs compete with humans for the same foods, so in an area of scarce resources, it doesn’t make any sense to keep them. Better to raise animals that can eat things you can’t – like grass.
The problem with these is they only explain the pigs – not the other gazillions of animals that are considered unclean. You’d have to come up with an individual argument for each one of them. There is also the separation argument, that pigs weren’t allowed because the followers of other religions ate them. But what about all the traditions of others that the Israelites borrowed, or shared, anyway – like sacrifice?
Douglas’ interpretation is valuable because it is comprehensive and consistent. And it is very useful to me, because it sets up the importance and value of Geertz’ definition of religion – focusing us on symbols and on the meanings we create which then govern our thinking processes and our behavior. So I’ll do a much better job with it today, and should help my students on Tuesday get it a lot better.
January 29
I think that Bush genuinely believes he has the mandate of Heaven. That God has ordained him to lead the world, and that means, to him, that he is above the law. Orders from God of course trump any one nation’s rules, and I think he thinks he has such orders. He is a mad man. An evil mad man.
We ask ourselves how the people of Germany could have allowed themselves to be led by a Hitler, how they could have blinded themselves as they did. Justified extreme measures. Now we need to ask ourselves the same questions. We can’t claim not to have known. After the first four years, we knew. But a majority chose to look away. The allowed themselves to believe that his stance on one thing – usually either gay marriage or abortion – was so important that it justified the violation, not only of the spirit and sometimes letter of the constitution, but the very morals these same people claim to hold.
And I know, when they are called to account in this life or the next, that will be their cry. “But I didn’t know!” That is no excuse when you had every chance to know but turned away.
These folks who have convinced themselves that God is punishing our nation for its tolerance of sin – they are only worried about sexual sin. Show me, anywhere in the Bible, where God is more concerned with sexual immorality than with social justice! You can’t, because it isn’t there. How can they believe God is going to be more upset with two men for expressing their love for one another through sex than he is going to be at all of us for turning our backs on the poor, the ill, the elderly and the unfortunate? I have to believe that hate and greed take us farther from God, or the Divine, however defined, than any kind of love.
Even if it turned out that homosexuality really is abhorrent to God, how could it possibly be more abhorrent than the rich feasting on the misery of others? And it seems like this should be obvious. If we all sat down and discussed it rationally, how could anyone disagree? How could they argue that God asks to point out the faults of others when we ourselves have so many, when Jesus could not have been clearer about it?
But the sad truth is that honest dialogue is rarely possible in our country right now. I don’t know that we have been this divided since the Civil War. Whereas in some ways I’d still like to argue that there is a wide diversity, a broad range of opinions on any given subject, in fact I believe we are getting more and more polarized. We’ve been split into two camps, and our opinions and views are diametrically opposed to one another. We find it harder and harder to even entertain the thought that the Other might have a valid point. I am as guilty of this as anyone. The Neo-conservatives, the fundamentalists, are just wrong! They seem so completely and obviously wrong.
Wait – that isn’t really true. Take abortion. I am pro-choice, but I can see the point of the pro-lifers. I could sit down with them and say, “Yes, in fact, I agree with you. I believe life begins at conception, and I don’t think we should be throwing away human lives.” But, would they listen to me when I stated my objection to making abortion illegal? For the record, it is that making it illegal won’t end it. We know that for a fact, because it used to be illegal, and what happened? Then it was only, or mostly, the unscrupulous giving abortions. So in addition to the wrong of taking an infant’s life, we added ruining women’s health, murdering young women, exploiting them financially, psychologically, and even sexually. We increased the number of children born with health problems stemming from botched, failed abortive attempts. And then, what about those infants you manage to save? How many will be born into poverty, into abuse, crime, etc.?
The way to end abortion is to reduce the demand. We don’t want to hear that, because it means we have to end poverty and hopelessness and racism and ignorance. That’s too hard.
But see, I can try to see their point of view, and I think I could have a calm, reasonable discussion. Many of us on the liberal left feel frustrated because it seems the right will not be reasonable, will not discuss calmly and rationally – instead, when they are losing the argument they start thumping their Bibles and screaming about faith, and the conversation is over.
It is so terrible to me that the most immoral, hateful people I can see have claimed the moral high ground. The people most yelling the name of God seem to me to be the complete opposite of what God – the God of the Bible – called for. Didn’t Jesus say something about that? “Many of you will say Lord, Lord.”
My problem is – how do I find a way not to be part of the problem? How do I keep myself from hating these people who hate me? How stay calm and keep inviting them to discuss?
February 4
Here is a quote from Eco’s [Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana] book, which I’m still reading: “I install, by means of science, the anthem of spiritual hearts into the work of my patience, scour atlases, herbals, and rituals.” What does it mean? I’m not sure, but it really grabbed me, it says something true to me about myself, but I’m not sure what.
It comes at a point in the text where he is kind of between religions, between purposes. He is struggling with his guilt over his participation in a mortal sin during the war, and mourning the death of his philosopher friend, which together symbolize much of the horror and meaninglessness of the war for him. Also he’s experiencing puberty. So he throws himself first into the flesh-denying practices of Catholic penitence and torments himself with the belief that one impure thought will send him to hell, which he is able to vividly envision. After a couple years of this, he realizes that it is as empty as anything else.
The paragraph before the above quote is this: “I am not like the failure, but I would like to become so. To fashion from his bibliomaniacal fury an opportunity for my own nonmonastic escape from the world. To build a world that is all mine. But I am not moving toward a conversion, if anything, I am coming back from one. Seeking an alternative faith, I become enamored of the decadents. Brothers, sad lilies, I pine for beauty . . I become a Byzantine eunuch watching the great white Barbarians go by and composing indolent anacrostics; I install, by means of science . . .”
I don’t know that I feel like picking it apart intellectually to find out why it resonates with me. I think it may mean something different for me, but it seems to me to be what I am doing. Installing, by means of science, the anthem of spiritual hearts . . . it seems to be what ethnography is.
February 5
I finished Eco last night and began reading Karen Armstrong’s Buddha. I only read the first 20 pages and so far it jibes with everything else I know about the Buddha's life and early Buddhism. The introduction discusses the history of the texts, pointing out the difficulty of writing a biography of someone whose life was lived before writing was invented (there in India), and whose life was only written about for specific purposes. I learned more about how the Pali Canon was constructed, and which are thought to be its earliest, most authentic parts. I’m currently in the middle of her discussion of the Axial Age. Something weird sure was going on. Look at these dates:
Confucius (551-479 BCE)
Lao-tzu (6th century BCE)
Socrates (469-399 BCE)
Plato (427-327 BCE)
Zoroaster (6th century BCE)
Gotama Buddha (c. 563-480 BCE)
And then the writing prophets of Judaism in the 8-6th centuries. What caused this massive transformation in the consciousness of humanity, and why did it only happen in five or six places? Because, I forgot, the Upanishads were written about this time (c.600-400 BCE), and Jainism was also founded at this time in India.
Jim suggested some kind of event in space, like a huge solar flare, or a supernova or something that affected humanity like a wave, spurring them to do new and different things, maybe even altering brain chemistry or something. The problem with that is, why did it only affect these 5 places? Jim’s answer at first, thinking only about the new world, was that perhaps stateless societies were spurred into state creation, while those that already had states had to change in other ways. But the question then is – what about Egypt and Babylonia? They had state level societies and were in close proximity, and they didn’t develop an Axial philosophy. Also, why weren’t people in Europe and Africa and SE Asia spurred into state-construction?
The first theory Armstrong presents is the Aryan Invader Theory. We know that people from the Russian steppes did migrate into the Middle East and the sub-continent in waves over a period from 800-200 BCE. And they caused a great deal of upheaval and change and sometimes terror and horror when they did. They did affect India profoundly. But – they never came into contact with the Hebrews, that we know of, and their migration or invasions happened over nearly a millennium, affecting different places at different times, and the Axial philosophies are clustered pretty tightly, depending on which of the Hebrew prophets you include.
My own feeling is that it had something to do with the development of the state and with population pressure. Things had reached a kind of critical mass in some of the places where agriculture and states first developed. But I don’t know enough yet to be able to explain exactly how it happened, and why it only happened in some places.
The next thing Armstrong notes (which I just read this minute!), is that all of the new ideologies were born in the context of the marketplace. So there were merchants that could contest the power of the king and temple.
Then she details the political economy in India at Gautama’s time – all of the changes that were taking place. She leaves discussion of the Axial Age behind for now, to explain why the man who was to become the Buddha left his home to seek his enlightenment. But it is surely an important question, one I think we should think about to look for parallels to our own time.
February 6
I’m nearly half way through Armstrong’s Buddha. It is, obviously, highly readable. So much so that if I was teaching Intro to World Religion again I would seriously consider using her books as texts. I never did finish getting my Hinduism lectures all typed up, but I’m kind of glad because I learned a lot from her that I’d like to work in. I don’t have a lot of time this morning, since I have to take the car to the insurance adjusters.
But one thing I have to revise in my lectures is that Smith presents Buddhism as being a reaction against the excess and abuses of Hinduism. But in fact, Hinduism as such didn’t exist yet. He was very much a man of his time, and he lived right in the middle of the general dissatisfaction with the Vedic tradition. The Upanishads were being written at the same time. Some of them and their philosophies of Atman and reincarnation, karma and Brahman as God-head had existed, but Armstrong argues these were secret teachings in a different region of India, and that it is very unlikely Gotama would have known of them. Later, yes, very likely. But it wasn’t his unbelief in those things that drove him out of the householder life and into the forest.
Also, he was born in a region that had not been subjugated by the Aryans and had no caste system. So he would have been able to look at that system with an outsider’s objectivity. He later associated himself with, or presented himself as a kshtrayia, but he wasn’t born to it and raised in it. Both of those facts should shed new light on the man and his philosophy.
February 8
I began reading the anthology of the Buddha’s discourses in the Pali Canon that Jim got me for Christmas. I admit that so far I am a little disappointed. I understand that these were first oral texts, and they had to be put into a format that was easy to memorize, and to recite. But the little I’ve read so far is very repetitive and circular, or tautological. There are some real gems, but you have to wad through the text patiently to find them.
Maybe it gets better, and it is only the first texts, about human nature, that are so unreadable. I like the way the editor organized the discourses. In general, the anthology progresses through those that lay out Buddha’s analysis of the human condition, then those about his own path to enlightenment, his diagnosis of our crisis, our suffering, and then his prescription for how to make it better. First are his exhortations to follow his Dhamma for the rewards it will bring in this life, then the rewards next life, or how to secure a better re-birth, and then how to secure the final release. Following that are discourses on method, and on how to live in the world as an Awakened being, and finally the few things he said about what Nibbana is like.
Since I just read Armstrong’s biography, I’m kind of skipping over the discourses about his life. I read the whole first part, about the human condition. Two pearls I found in it:
His discourse on pain. He makes the point that those unenlightened beings like myself actually feel two pains when we are physically hurt: the physical pain and an accompanying mental pain. We do not have to experience the mental pain. It arises because of our misguided belief that we are our bodies, and our attachment to those bodies, especially as sources of sensual pleasure. The Dhamma provides the way for us to realize we are not our bodies, and that all of the sensations, painful and pleasurable, that it provides are temporary, impermanent. We cling to things that are destined to pass away. If I could, therefore, see my pain objectively, it would not cure the pain, but would limit it, and prevent the accompanying mental anguish. My body has pain, but not me.
So that is helpful in that it offers hope. If I keep reading and learning and begin to practice, there is a possibility I could achieve a state where the pain ceases to matter.
The other was the metaphor of a dog on a leash. We humans regard form as self, feeling as self, perception as self, volition as self, consciousness as self. Like a dog on a leash, tied to a pole, we keep running around and around form, feeling, perception, etc., and all that running does not free us; in fact, it binds us ever more tightly to form, feeling, etc. Thus it ties us to ageing, birth and death, sorrow, pain, dejection and despair. Our freedom will therefore depend on ceasing to be tied to the five skandas – form, feeling, perception, volition and consciousness. Easier said than done, eh?
In the meantime, I still have all these things to deal with and do, being still attached to these things, these skanda. I guess I’ll keep writing and reading until 9 am, then call Samaritan Hospital, try to get the bill sorted out, then go online and deal with e-mail, and then get to work.
February 10
I’m really plowing through the Pali Canon in what is probably not a very thoughtful way. Nearly half way through the anthology, having skipped a few parts. I’m beginning the section “Deepening One’s Perspective on the World.” I’ve read about his life and enlightenment, his instructions on how to live a good life here, how to obtain a good re-birth, and am now ready, at last, to read and learn more about his analysis of our condition and the source of suffering. These texts are all about attachment, and the ultimate futility of desire.
Here he is talking about three “moments” in the process of acquiring insight, when we realize the truths of gratification, danger and escape. We find gratification in sensual pleasures, in form, and in feelings. There are five cords of gratification in sensual pleasure: Visible forms, odors, flavors, tactile objects, and sounds. The pleasure and joy that arise from these 5 are the gratification.
The danger of these are the pains and sorrows that come from pursuing these things, the disappointment when we don’t get them, the anxiety and worry of protecting them if we do get them, the sorrow and grief if we lose them – a mass of suffering visible in this present life.
Further, on account of these sensual pleasures, kings fight with kings, mothers with fathers, mothers with sons, etc. Men go to war, or become thieves, or seduce other men’s wives. We indulge in misconduct of speech, body and mind, and then are born into another life of misery.
Our only escape from the dangers of sensual pleasures is the removal of desire and lust for them. To highlight the dangers of gratification from form, he instructs us to think of a beautiful young woman – perfect in form. But won’t she age? Decay, become ill, maybe bent over, grimacing in pain, suffering from decline? Won’t she eventually die and begin to rot? He’s very graphic about it, too. Then he goes on to say that even the highest states of meditation are dangerous, because they, too, pass away.
It’s good to be reminded that the Buddha didn’t ignore the obvious fact that we derive a lot of pleasure and joy from life. The problem, of course, is that those joys are temporary, impermanent, changing. And we dislike that; we cling to them, but we can’t make them stay. I think Smith could do a better job of highlighting that, since impermanence is really the Buddha’s primary concern.
I read through the Canon quickly in part, I think now, because I was in search of something that would help me conquer my physical pain. I had already taken two college classes on Buddhism, had read many of the primary texts before, and had been teaching the basics for awhile. And while the practice of Buddhists is appealing to me, I have never agreed wholly with the philosophy. More on that to come. I had always been taught that Gotama was offering a reform of Hinduism, and I preferred different reforms.
January 23, 2006
What I really would like is to be chemical-free. To wake up every morning feeling rested and healthy and excited about the new day. Not limping in severe pain to the pill-bottle and counting the minutes until relief sets in. I’ve pretty much had it with depression, too. So today I’m going to get all my work done – all the stuff that is hanging over my head. And then I’m going to finish my Dad’s letter. I do have to run in and teach a class, and stop at the grocery store on my way home, but that still leaves me a lot of time to get things done around the house.
In short, I want myself back. I had that short window between the defense of my dissertation and the onset of shingles, where I saw a few glimpses. And then she’s been drifting away ever since. I know Jim wants her back, too. Not only have I been mopey, but he’s also been afraid to touch me, for fear of hurting me, though he recognizes that I’ve really needed to be touched.
Okay, already accomplished one task. It had been too long since I read Mary Douglas, so when I presented her analysis of the food laws in Leviticus, I got it sort of messed up, and my students almost got into a fight over whether or not some animals have cloven hooves. So I need to fix that for today, and will also revisit it quickly on Tuesday.
Rereading her, I’m struck again by how much sense she makes. Her basic argument is that none of the restrictions in Leviticus make sense if taken piece-meal. That all of those who try to explain food taboos without reference to the rest of the text will always fail, or introduce too many contradictory and confusing and complex concepts. That really it is quite simple and it is all present in the text. To understand food and other rules, one has only to understand the Jewish conception of the universe. It is split into holy and unholy, clean and unclean. And the basics are laid out in Genesis. God created the world in 3 basic parts; earth, sea, and air. And he made creatures to fit those parts, which walk, swim, or fly. Those animals that are clean are those which most closely fit or represent the category. Those considered unclean are those that mix categories, having features from more than one.
When one also considers the other laws, one sees that the idea of mixing is consistently seen as a bad, unclean, unholy thing. As she says, “We can conclude that holiness requires that individuals shall conform to the class to which they belong. And holiness requires that different classes of things shall not be confused.”
When one looks at orders such as that garments must not be made of mixed materials – I.e. not flax and wool, nor should you plow fields with more than one kind of seed, or let 2 types of cattle breed with one another. So, she says, the sexual laws, too, have less to do with morality than with holiness. A married person fits one category, a single another. A married person should not behave as a single one. Incest and adultery are wrong because they violate the rights of husbands and brothers.
Finally, she says, “If the proposed interpretation is correct, the dietary laws would have been like signs which at every turn inspired meditation on the oneness, purity, and completeness of God.”
To start from the beginning then. We are to strive toward Holiness, because that will bring us blessings. Not doing so will bring us curses. What is holiness? Separation, Completeness (witness all the injunctions against incomplete men or animals approaching the temple). Also, important activities were not to be left incomplete. And then Perfection, meaning conforming to the class or category. The word usually translated “perversion” is tebhel, which really means “mixing” or “confusion.” That says a lot right there.
Doesn’t this argument, this interpretation, make a lot more sense than either pious allegories or the claim that the Hebrew priests were simply law-crazy and made up a bunch of arbitrary rules? I think it makes more sense, too, than the medical and ecological explanations. The medical is that one can get trichinosis from uncooked pork, or improperly cooked pork. The ecological is that pigs compete with humans for the same foods, so in an area of scarce resources, it doesn’t make any sense to keep them. Better to raise animals that can eat things you can’t – like grass.
The problem with these is they only explain the pigs – not the other gazillions of animals that are considered unclean. You’d have to come up with an individual argument for each one of them. There is also the separation argument, that pigs weren’t allowed because the followers of other religions ate them. But what about all the traditions of others that the Israelites borrowed, or shared, anyway – like sacrifice?
Douglas’ interpretation is valuable because it is comprehensive and consistent. And it is very useful to me, because it sets up the importance and value of Geertz’ definition of religion – focusing us on symbols and on the meanings we create which then govern our thinking processes and our behavior. So I’ll do a much better job with it today, and should help my students on Tuesday get it a lot better.
January 29
I think that Bush genuinely believes he has the mandate of Heaven. That God has ordained him to lead the world, and that means, to him, that he is above the law. Orders from God of course trump any one nation’s rules, and I think he thinks he has such orders. He is a mad man. An evil mad man.
We ask ourselves how the people of Germany could have allowed themselves to be led by a Hitler, how they could have blinded themselves as they did. Justified extreme measures. Now we need to ask ourselves the same questions. We can’t claim not to have known. After the first four years, we knew. But a majority chose to look away. The allowed themselves to believe that his stance on one thing – usually either gay marriage or abortion – was so important that it justified the violation, not only of the spirit and sometimes letter of the constitution, but the very morals these same people claim to hold.
And I know, when they are called to account in this life or the next, that will be their cry. “But I didn’t know!” That is no excuse when you had every chance to know but turned away.
These folks who have convinced themselves that God is punishing our nation for its tolerance of sin – they are only worried about sexual sin. Show me, anywhere in the Bible, where God is more concerned with sexual immorality than with social justice! You can’t, because it isn’t there. How can they believe God is going to be more upset with two men for expressing their love for one another through sex than he is going to be at all of us for turning our backs on the poor, the ill, the elderly and the unfortunate? I have to believe that hate and greed take us farther from God, or the Divine, however defined, than any kind of love.
Even if it turned out that homosexuality really is abhorrent to God, how could it possibly be more abhorrent than the rich feasting on the misery of others? And it seems like this should be obvious. If we all sat down and discussed it rationally, how could anyone disagree? How could they argue that God asks to point out the faults of others when we ourselves have so many, when Jesus could not have been clearer about it?
But the sad truth is that honest dialogue is rarely possible in our country right now. I don’t know that we have been this divided since the Civil War. Whereas in some ways I’d still like to argue that there is a wide diversity, a broad range of opinions on any given subject, in fact I believe we are getting more and more polarized. We’ve been split into two camps, and our opinions and views are diametrically opposed to one another. We find it harder and harder to even entertain the thought that the Other might have a valid point. I am as guilty of this as anyone. The Neo-conservatives, the fundamentalists, are just wrong! They seem so completely and obviously wrong.
Wait – that isn’t really true. Take abortion. I am pro-choice, but I can see the point of the pro-lifers. I could sit down with them and say, “Yes, in fact, I agree with you. I believe life begins at conception, and I don’t think we should be throwing away human lives.” But, would they listen to me when I stated my objection to making abortion illegal? For the record, it is that making it illegal won’t end it. We know that for a fact, because it used to be illegal, and what happened? Then it was only, or mostly, the unscrupulous giving abortions. So in addition to the wrong of taking an infant’s life, we added ruining women’s health, murdering young women, exploiting them financially, psychologically, and even sexually. We increased the number of children born with health problems stemming from botched, failed abortive attempts. And then, what about those infants you manage to save? How many will be born into poverty, into abuse, crime, etc.?
The way to end abortion is to reduce the demand. We don’t want to hear that, because it means we have to end poverty and hopelessness and racism and ignorance. That’s too hard.
But see, I can try to see their point of view, and I think I could have a calm, reasonable discussion. Many of us on the liberal left feel frustrated because it seems the right will not be reasonable, will not discuss calmly and rationally – instead, when they are losing the argument they start thumping their Bibles and screaming about faith, and the conversation is over.
It is so terrible to me that the most immoral, hateful people I can see have claimed the moral high ground. The people most yelling the name of God seem to me to be the complete opposite of what God – the God of the Bible – called for. Didn’t Jesus say something about that? “Many of you will say Lord, Lord.”
My problem is – how do I find a way not to be part of the problem? How do I keep myself from hating these people who hate me? How stay calm and keep inviting them to discuss?
February 4
Here is a quote from Eco’s [Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana] book, which I’m still reading: “I install, by means of science, the anthem of spiritual hearts into the work of my patience, scour atlases, herbals, and rituals.” What does it mean? I’m not sure, but it really grabbed me, it says something true to me about myself, but I’m not sure what.
It comes at a point in the text where he is kind of between religions, between purposes. He is struggling with his guilt over his participation in a mortal sin during the war, and mourning the death of his philosopher friend, which together symbolize much of the horror and meaninglessness of the war for him. Also he’s experiencing puberty. So he throws himself first into the flesh-denying practices of Catholic penitence and torments himself with the belief that one impure thought will send him to hell, which he is able to vividly envision. After a couple years of this, he realizes that it is as empty as anything else.
The paragraph before the above quote is this: “I am not like the failure, but I would like to become so. To fashion from his bibliomaniacal fury an opportunity for my own nonmonastic escape from the world. To build a world that is all mine. But I am not moving toward a conversion, if anything, I am coming back from one. Seeking an alternative faith, I become enamored of the decadents. Brothers, sad lilies, I pine for beauty . . I become a Byzantine eunuch watching the great white Barbarians go by and composing indolent anacrostics; I install, by means of science . . .”
I don’t know that I feel like picking it apart intellectually to find out why it resonates with me. I think it may mean something different for me, but it seems to me to be what I am doing. Installing, by means of science, the anthem of spiritual hearts . . . it seems to be what ethnography is.
February 5
I finished Eco last night and began reading Karen Armstrong’s Buddha. I only read the first 20 pages and so far it jibes with everything else I know about the Buddha's life and early Buddhism. The introduction discusses the history of the texts, pointing out the difficulty of writing a biography of someone whose life was lived before writing was invented (there in India), and whose life was only written about for specific purposes. I learned more about how the Pali Canon was constructed, and which are thought to be its earliest, most authentic parts. I’m currently in the middle of her discussion of the Axial Age. Something weird sure was going on. Look at these dates:
Confucius (551-479 BCE)
Lao-tzu (6th century BCE)
Socrates (469-399 BCE)
Plato (427-327 BCE)
Zoroaster (6th century BCE)
Gotama Buddha (c. 563-480 BCE)
And then the writing prophets of Judaism in the 8-6th centuries. What caused this massive transformation in the consciousness of humanity, and why did it only happen in five or six places? Because, I forgot, the Upanishads were written about this time (c.600-400 BCE), and Jainism was also founded at this time in India.
Jim suggested some kind of event in space, like a huge solar flare, or a supernova or something that affected humanity like a wave, spurring them to do new and different things, maybe even altering brain chemistry or something. The problem with that is, why did it only affect these 5 places? Jim’s answer at first, thinking only about the new world, was that perhaps stateless societies were spurred into state creation, while those that already had states had to change in other ways. But the question then is – what about Egypt and Babylonia? They had state level societies and were in close proximity, and they didn’t develop an Axial philosophy. Also, why weren’t people in Europe and Africa and SE Asia spurred into state-construction?
The first theory Armstrong presents is the Aryan Invader Theory. We know that people from the Russian steppes did migrate into the Middle East and the sub-continent in waves over a period from 800-200 BCE. And they caused a great deal of upheaval and change and sometimes terror and horror when they did. They did affect India profoundly. But – they never came into contact with the Hebrews, that we know of, and their migration or invasions happened over nearly a millennium, affecting different places at different times, and the Axial philosophies are clustered pretty tightly, depending on which of the Hebrew prophets you include.
My own feeling is that it had something to do with the development of the state and with population pressure. Things had reached a kind of critical mass in some of the places where agriculture and states first developed. But I don’t know enough yet to be able to explain exactly how it happened, and why it only happened in some places.
The next thing Armstrong notes (which I just read this minute!), is that all of the new ideologies were born in the context of the marketplace. So there were merchants that could contest the power of the king and temple.
Then she details the political economy in India at Gautama’s time – all of the changes that were taking place. She leaves discussion of the Axial Age behind for now, to explain why the man who was to become the Buddha left his home to seek his enlightenment. But it is surely an important question, one I think we should think about to look for parallels to our own time.
February 6
I’m nearly half way through Armstrong’s Buddha. It is, obviously, highly readable. So much so that if I was teaching Intro to World Religion again I would seriously consider using her books as texts. I never did finish getting my Hinduism lectures all typed up, but I’m kind of glad because I learned a lot from her that I’d like to work in. I don’t have a lot of time this morning, since I have to take the car to the insurance adjusters.
But one thing I have to revise in my lectures is that Smith presents Buddhism as being a reaction against the excess and abuses of Hinduism. But in fact, Hinduism as such didn’t exist yet. He was very much a man of his time, and he lived right in the middle of the general dissatisfaction with the Vedic tradition. The Upanishads were being written at the same time. Some of them and their philosophies of Atman and reincarnation, karma and Brahman as God-head had existed, but Armstrong argues these were secret teachings in a different region of India, and that it is very unlikely Gotama would have known of them. Later, yes, very likely. But it wasn’t his unbelief in those things that drove him out of the householder life and into the forest.
Also, he was born in a region that had not been subjugated by the Aryans and had no caste system. So he would have been able to look at that system with an outsider’s objectivity. He later associated himself with, or presented himself as a kshtrayia, but he wasn’t born to it and raised in it. Both of those facts should shed new light on the man and his philosophy.
February 8
I began reading the anthology of the Buddha’s discourses in the Pali Canon that Jim got me for Christmas. I admit that so far I am a little disappointed. I understand that these were first oral texts, and they had to be put into a format that was easy to memorize, and to recite. But the little I’ve read so far is very repetitive and circular, or tautological. There are some real gems, but you have to wad through the text patiently to find them.
Maybe it gets better, and it is only the first texts, about human nature, that are so unreadable. I like the way the editor organized the discourses. In general, the anthology progresses through those that lay out Buddha’s analysis of the human condition, then those about his own path to enlightenment, his diagnosis of our crisis, our suffering, and then his prescription for how to make it better. First are his exhortations to follow his Dhamma for the rewards it will bring in this life, then the rewards next life, or how to secure a better re-birth, and then how to secure the final release. Following that are discourses on method, and on how to live in the world as an Awakened being, and finally the few things he said about what Nibbana is like.
Since I just read Armstrong’s biography, I’m kind of skipping over the discourses about his life. I read the whole first part, about the human condition. Two pearls I found in it:
His discourse on pain. He makes the point that those unenlightened beings like myself actually feel two pains when we are physically hurt: the physical pain and an accompanying mental pain. We do not have to experience the mental pain. It arises because of our misguided belief that we are our bodies, and our attachment to those bodies, especially as sources of sensual pleasure. The Dhamma provides the way for us to realize we are not our bodies, and that all of the sensations, painful and pleasurable, that it provides are temporary, impermanent. We cling to things that are destined to pass away. If I could, therefore, see my pain objectively, it would not cure the pain, but would limit it, and prevent the accompanying mental anguish. My body has pain, but not me.
So that is helpful in that it offers hope. If I keep reading and learning and begin to practice, there is a possibility I could achieve a state where the pain ceases to matter.
The other was the metaphor of a dog on a leash. We humans regard form as self, feeling as self, perception as self, volition as self, consciousness as self. Like a dog on a leash, tied to a pole, we keep running around and around form, feeling, perception, etc., and all that running does not free us; in fact, it binds us ever more tightly to form, feeling, etc. Thus it ties us to ageing, birth and death, sorrow, pain, dejection and despair. Our freedom will therefore depend on ceasing to be tied to the five skandas – form, feeling, perception, volition and consciousness. Easier said than done, eh?
In the meantime, I still have all these things to deal with and do, being still attached to these things, these skanda. I guess I’ll keep writing and reading until 9 am, then call Samaritan Hospital, try to get the bill sorted out, then go online and deal with e-mail, and then get to work.
February 10
I’m really plowing through the Pali Canon in what is probably not a very thoughtful way. Nearly half way through the anthology, having skipped a few parts. I’m beginning the section “Deepening One’s Perspective on the World.” I’ve read about his life and enlightenment, his instructions on how to live a good life here, how to obtain a good re-birth, and am now ready, at last, to read and learn more about his analysis of our condition and the source of suffering. These texts are all about attachment, and the ultimate futility of desire.
Here he is talking about three “moments” in the process of acquiring insight, when we realize the truths of gratification, danger and escape. We find gratification in sensual pleasures, in form, and in feelings. There are five cords of gratification in sensual pleasure: Visible forms, odors, flavors, tactile objects, and sounds. The pleasure and joy that arise from these 5 are the gratification.
The danger of these are the pains and sorrows that come from pursuing these things, the disappointment when we don’t get them, the anxiety and worry of protecting them if we do get them, the sorrow and grief if we lose them – a mass of suffering visible in this present life.
Further, on account of these sensual pleasures, kings fight with kings, mothers with fathers, mothers with sons, etc. Men go to war, or become thieves, or seduce other men’s wives. We indulge in misconduct of speech, body and mind, and then are born into another life of misery.
Our only escape from the dangers of sensual pleasures is the removal of desire and lust for them. To highlight the dangers of gratification from form, he instructs us to think of a beautiful young woman – perfect in form. But won’t she age? Decay, become ill, maybe bent over, grimacing in pain, suffering from decline? Won’t she eventually die and begin to rot? He’s very graphic about it, too. Then he goes on to say that even the highest states of meditation are dangerous, because they, too, pass away.
It’s good to be reminded that the Buddha didn’t ignore the obvious fact that we derive a lot of pleasure and joy from life. The problem, of course, is that those joys are temporary, impermanent, changing. And we dislike that; we cling to them, but we can’t make them stay. I think Smith could do a better job of highlighting that, since impermanence is really the Buddha’s primary concern.
I read through the Canon quickly in part, I think now, because I was in search of something that would help me conquer my physical pain. I had already taken two college classes on Buddhism, had read many of the primary texts before, and had been teaching the basics for awhile. And while the practice of Buddhists is appealing to me, I have never agreed wholly with the philosophy. More on that to come. I had always been taught that Gotama was offering a reform of Hinduism, and I preferred different reforms.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
2005 - Free (from grad school) At Last! (May-Sept)
When I began this blog, I envisioned putting out small bits of my long-ago journals at a time, ekeing them out over a long period. But now I feel eager to get them all up and out of the way, so that I can be current and move on to the new things I'm reading and thinking about. Thus the enormous chunks and too-long posts, and the multiple posts per day, especially on weekends. It is Spring Break now, and I have a lot of work I'm supposed to be doing. But today is the first day of break, and I am in desperate need of doing fun things. So don't be surprised by the huge amounts of text! I'm hoping to get some pictures up tomorrow, but the ones I want are on my hubby's computer, and he is busy watching basketball today. This is how people celebrate their 11th anniversary, I guess : )
May 18
I allowed myself to read the intro to one of my new books, The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason, by Charles Freeman. Bought it while Mom was here and she didn’t like the looks of it. Hard to know if she had a point or was just prejudiced until I read it. One of the scary things about getting older is realizing how defensive one’s parents are about things that are important to them, and how that defensiveness hints at what they do not know.
But that isn’t fair. They clearly know a lot more about faith than I do, from the inside, and I feel sure they would say that faith is more important to them than any intellectual understanding or knowledge. But for me, being the rationalist I’m sure they taught me to be, I can’t believe something with my heart that my brain doesn’t accept. I would like to have faith – a relationship with a loving God. But right now I can’t – except on a simultaneously very deep and very shallow level, because I have to know what kind of god I’m having a relationship with. I don’t mean what he/she/it looks like, or even what church he/she/it most approves of.
Third paragraph I almost began with But. Okay, but how does one read scripture for guidance when one is always wondering, “Yes, but how did this get into the canon? Why this and not something else? What do all the other texts that didn’t make it have to say about this issue? Who actually wrote this and what was his political agenda? How can I possible believe this is what God said, wanted, thought, when there have been so many opportunities for human corruption?
I find myself reading the Bible with great intensity and excitement, but no longer with innocence. Hindus and Buddhists, even Jews and Muslims make far greater sense to me than Christians do. At least the Christianity of today. So, I find a need to steep myself in the history. If I am going to be a Christian it will likely be as a heretical one. And so I need to find answers for myself about how Christianity got to be the way it is, and see if there is anything at the core I can believe in. It is unfortunate that the Christians I know know so little about their own religion outside of the very particular brand they practice. And actually – it supports the thesis of this book; mostly what I get from Mom and Dad is “Oh, I don’t know about that and I don’t want to know.” And from my students, of course, it is much worse.
I guess I keep harping on it – and will continue to – because I find it [that attitude] confusing and distasteful. The confusing part is how otherwise intelligent, open-minded people can be so, not irrational, but anti-rational and closed minded when it comes to things that are truly important. It is distasteful to me because it often smacks of fear. To me, having “the courage of our convictions” means facing fear, doubt, etc. But sometimes from my parents I feel they are afraid of learning something, as if the whole structure will fall apart if one brick proves faulty. That’s not a belief system I’d want to stand on.
I find myself in the unflattering position of feeling contemptuous of a couple whose faith I have seen working, and whose love for me and for others is deep and unquestionable. And yet, why are they afraid to discuss the construction of the canon? I guess it is very modern of me, but I hate the idea of people believing things out of fear. I’ve said since I was a teen that I’d rather spend eternity in hell than believe something because I was afraid not to. And the thing is, I just can’t make myself believe in a God who would throw me in hell just because I used the mind he gave me.
The whole story of the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Knowledge gives me the heebie-jeebies. It always has – or at least, as far back as I can remember. Why in the world would an all-knowing and loving God do that? He knew what would happen – he designed the creatures so that they would disobey, and then punishes them for it? So, if I genetically engineer a child to be curious, if I love it would I then put neat things in front of it and tell the child not to touch them? And if I did that, and the child touched them, would I be right to punish it eternally? And all of its descendents?
Jesus supposedly said something about how even imperfect humans know how to love their children, so how much more does our heavenly father know how to love us? To me, these two stories are in flat contradiction. If true, there seem to me only two ways to interpret the Genesis story. Either 1) What God does and his reasons for doing it are so incomprehensible that there is no point in ever trying to figure out what He means, or 2) those Gnostics who claim Yahweh was a lesser god who, on an egomaniacal rampage convinced himself he’d done away with the other gods, is largely in control. Not all-powerful, not all-knowing, just sort having a fit teenage rebellion.
May 18
I allowed myself to read the intro to one of my new books, The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason, by Charles Freeman. Bought it while Mom was here and she didn’t like the looks of it. Hard to know if she had a point or was just prejudiced until I read it. One of the scary things about getting older is realizing how defensive one’s parents are about things that are important to them, and how that defensiveness hints at what they do not know.
But that isn’t fair. They clearly know a lot more about faith than I do, from the inside, and I feel sure they would say that faith is more important to them than any intellectual understanding or knowledge. But for me, being the rationalist I’m sure they taught me to be, I can’t believe something with my heart that my brain doesn’t accept. I would like to have faith – a relationship with a loving God. But right now I can’t – except on a simultaneously very deep and very shallow level, because I have to know what kind of god I’m having a relationship with. I don’t mean what he/she/it looks like, or even what church he/she/it most approves of.
Third paragraph I almost began with But. Okay, but how does one read scripture for guidance when one is always wondering, “Yes, but how did this get into the canon? Why this and not something else? What do all the other texts that didn’t make it have to say about this issue? Who actually wrote this and what was his political agenda? How can I possible believe this is what God said, wanted, thought, when there have been so many opportunities for human corruption?
I find myself reading the Bible with great intensity and excitement, but no longer with innocence. Hindus and Buddhists, even Jews and Muslims make far greater sense to me than Christians do. At least the Christianity of today. So, I find a need to steep myself in the history. If I am going to be a Christian it will likely be as a heretical one. And so I need to find answers for myself about how Christianity got to be the way it is, and see if there is anything at the core I can believe in. It is unfortunate that the Christians I know know so little about their own religion outside of the very particular brand they practice. And actually – it supports the thesis of this book; mostly what I get from Mom and Dad is “Oh, I don’t know about that and I don’t want to know.” And from my students, of course, it is much worse.
I guess I keep harping on it – and will continue to – because I find it [that attitude] confusing and distasteful. The confusing part is how otherwise intelligent, open-minded people can be so, not irrational, but anti-rational and closed minded when it comes to things that are truly important. It is distasteful to me because it often smacks of fear. To me, having “the courage of our convictions” means facing fear, doubt, etc. But sometimes from my parents I feel they are afraid of learning something, as if the whole structure will fall apart if one brick proves faulty. That’s not a belief system I’d want to stand on.
I find myself in the unflattering position of feeling contemptuous of a couple whose faith I have seen working, and whose love for me and for others is deep and unquestionable. And yet, why are they afraid to discuss the construction of the canon? I guess it is very modern of me, but I hate the idea of people believing things out of fear. I’ve said since I was a teen that I’d rather spend eternity in hell than believe something because I was afraid not to. And the thing is, I just can’t make myself believe in a God who would throw me in hell just because I used the mind he gave me.
The whole story of the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Knowledge gives me the heebie-jeebies. It always has – or at least, as far back as I can remember. Why in the world would an all-knowing and loving God do that? He knew what would happen – he designed the creatures so that they would disobey, and then punishes them for it? So, if I genetically engineer a child to be curious, if I love it would I then put neat things in front of it and tell the child not to touch them? And if I did that, and the child touched them, would I be right to punish it eternally? And all of its descendents?
Jesus supposedly said something about how even imperfect humans know how to love their children, so how much more does our heavenly father know how to love us? To me, these two stories are in flat contradiction. If true, there seem to me only two ways to interpret the Genesis story. Either 1) What God does and his reasons for doing it are so incomprehensible that there is no point in ever trying to figure out what He means, or 2) those Gnostics who claim Yahweh was a lesser god who, on an egomaniacal rampage convinced himself he’d done away with the other gods, is largely in control. Not all-powerful, not all-knowing, just sort having a fit teenage rebellion.
The first thing that strikes me as I read this today is fear that it is going to hurt my Mother's feelings. I really do not want to hurt her or anyone else. So why am I posting it? Because this is a recurring refrain - not just with Mom, but with a few other Christians I know who often take my questions or doubts personally. There is this tender area, fraught with tension, surrounding all questions for which there are no or difficult answers. Its about disclosure, I guess. I want my cards to be all on the table. That's why I'm posting it, even though it might hurt. And I post this reminder, that just because I thought it, and even though I still think that there is a tendency to be defensive on behalf of Christianity as a religion, and on behalf of the Bible (I.e. for being inconsistent), and on behalf of other Christians, doesn't mean I'm right.
Anyway, the second thing that occurred to me as I read this was what a struggle it has always been for me to wear both my anthropological and my Christian hats at the same time, whereas that has been less of a problem when pursuing other faiths. There I sat, reading an important Hebraic myth, and it did not even occur to me to analyze it as a myth! For the first few months of grappling with Christian theology again (see below) on an emotional level, I seem to approach it without any of the tools I had just picked up with 10 years of study. I reverted right back to where I had left off, or perhaps even farther back.
May 22
In terms of the book Mom didn’t like the looks of, I’ve found a couple of errors and one area of sloppy research, so it does cast doubt on his scholarship. Overall, though, I think he’s pretty even-handed. He isn’t one of those people who is so pissed off at the church that he can’t be objective. So that’s good. And most of what he’s talked about so far I already knew. But it is helpful to have certain things re-iterated. I can’t wait to be able to turn my whole mind over to these other non-dissertation things!
May 27
I’m trying to get back to serious study of Closing . . ., but I feel like I need to read it side by side with Armstrong’s History of God, because I trust her more than him. And that ends up seeming like a lot of work. In the meantime, I just finished reading Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow, and am about to start in on the sequel. She writes so beautifully, and I was beginning to feel the unfairness of examining Christianity with only the intellect, since it is the faith experience that is so essential to the religion. Russell deals unflinchingly with the most difficult challenges to faith – both intellectually and spiritually/emotionally.
May 31
[reading previous journals]
1994 – Humboldt was really good to me. In May of ’94 I was becoming a Christian for all the same reasons I’ve held since then. Except my faith is no longer so strong that there IS Someone who cares about me (us) and sees or makes a pattern in our lives. Maybe I’m just not allowing myself to make the leap. To feel the pull. Although, I finished Mary Doria Russell’s second book today, and she said, or had a character say, that what breaks God’s heart is not pain or hate or denial, but indifference. Surely I can’t be accused of ever being indifferent to God. Sometimes I’ve hated, sometimes been bent on knowing what exactly God is, sometimes I’ve despaired of ever finding Him/Her. But I can’t recall ever being indifferent.
I was learning about faith. What happened? Oh yeah, the cynicism of graduate school. Why did I give in to it? Pure peer pressure. A sense that I wasn’t strong enough, smart enough, myself, unless I joined the herd.
July 4
The other issue that occurred to me this morning is his [Dad’s] attitude and his beliefs about homosexuality. This one kills me. I found out a couple years ago that he is really prejudiced against gay people. We had a big discussion about it. I think we were actually talking about gay clergy, because the Episcopalian church had just ordained, or installed, a gay bishop. It got a lot of coverage here because he was from Kentucky. But I was there in { } for Mom’s by pass surgery.
It was also when he was in the middle of having to choose between a mediocre organist with the right sexuality or an excellent one who is gay. He eventually made the right decision, but it wasn’t easy for him, and I could hardly believe it. His feeling is that homosexuality is clearly a sin. It says so in the Bible in several places, and he said he felt we cannot practice moral relativism. A sin is a sin, no matter what the prevailing social norms. In theory, he adopted the “hate the sin, love the sinner” credo, but in fact I think this organist was the first gay person – that he knew of – that he has ever gotten to know, and he was certainly struggling with having to reach out to him Christian love.
So, for the church to ordain openly gay ministers, Dad feels they would be saying that in fact you can pick which parts of God’s words you are going to obey, and which you’ll ignore. I can buy that. I don’t agree with him, but it is a tenable position to hold.
He wasn’t sure if sexuality is innate or not. But I asked him if that were so, didn’t it mean that God had made them that way? And if so, how can it be a sin? He felt that even if you were born with the tendency to desire members of your own sex, you don’t have to act on it. The sin is not the feeling, it is the behavior. Never mind what Jesus said about lust in the heart being the equivalent of the behavior. Let’s just focus in on his belief that 10% of the world’s population must learn to control their sexuality – must fight their nature their entire lives – or they will spend eternity in hell.
August 3
Spent the rest of the day reading Mary Doria Russell’s latest book, A Thread of Desire. As I commented to Jim, that woman excels at writing books that are so painful you can barely stand to read them, but so beautiful you can hardly put them down. This one is about Jews in Italy during WWII. It’s set in 1943, when Italy has just declared armistice with the Allies, and Germany has promptly invaded. So all the Jews who’ve been trickling south and then make a break for Italy expecting a warm welcome are now fleeing from Nazis once again.
Someone like me simply cannot comprehend the hatred humans are able to maintain toward one another, nor the courage and faith of others that allows them to persist in loving others and God in the face of that hatred. We read and read, and I guess some write novels, and we study and research and some times are able to attach labels and theories to both phenomena – but they are really just mysteries, aren’t they? We really understand so very little of the workings of the human heart.
August 12
[after describing a quarrel with Jim]
But I’m asking myself right now, so what? So what if he never notices anything nice I do for him? I want him to live up to Paul’s description of love in Corinthians, but do I? Love doesn’t count the cost. Love does not keep a tally sheet. I need to do things for Jim out of my love for him. To offer as true gifts whatever I am able. . . Hindus, Buddhists and real Christians have it right – how can it possibly hurt me for Jim to remember more bad than good, or to blame me for everything, or to fail to notice something I’ve done, etc., if I am simply doing what is right for me to do, and offering myself to him as a loving gift? Do my duty without any expectations. And that doesn’t’ mean I have to do his duty. It doesn’t make me a door mat.
Okay, I know that I want to become more like the old me, only better. How do I get there? I think it would be good idea to get out Paul’s definition of love and St. Francis’ prayer, the “Where there is hatred, let me bring love” one, and read them slowly and meaningfully every day. Pray them, really. That would help me get my head in the right place before I start my day. Then, as the Buddha instructed, I need to watch myself. Notice, be aware of my behavior and ask myself why I’m doing it. As I become more and more aware of my motivations, using this forum to help me, I ought to be able to change.
August 13
Need to find those prayers I mentioned. I believe we are what we think. Our minds have tremendous control over our bodies. So if I have those reminders every morning of what I’d like to be, I think over time I will naturally live my life in accordance, without having to work quite as hard. As the wise Buddha said, having the Right View and the Right Intent go a long way toward helping one have Right Speech and Right Conduct.
August 15
One thing I forgot to write here is that I had an insight about the no-soul, anatta doctrine of Buddhism. I learned that the founder of Jainism lived and preached about the same time and in the same area as the Buddha. He taught that karma is a real, physical substance. It’s atoms attach themselves to the jiva and accumulate there. They are attracted by acts of violence and selfishness. The Buddha’s teachings make a lot more sense when seen in that context. I hope that by learning these things I’ll be able really show my students how important context is – that ALL of these religious doctrines took shape in particular, historical situations and formed as against other available doctrines – sometimes as part of vicious debates.
August 17
I also have not dug out those spiritual guides yet. I know I really need to. Need help focusing on others, remembering to make service to others my highest goal. Isn’t it interesting that the central theme of all the world’s major religions is to turn from the self, to reduce selfishness or self-centeredness? It does make one wonder if it isn’t all really just a way to make it possible for humans to live together. In other words, sociobiology is right, and religion, or the capacity for religion, was simply an evolutionary adaptation that allowed humans to be more successful by allowing them to work together more harmoniously. If so, the laugh is on us, isn’t it? Since more people have been killed in the name of religion than anything else? Of course, those wars are in direct contradiction of the doctrines of all religions, but what the hell.
September 27
As I was thinking about my religion class I remembered that I’d meant to watch “What the Bleep Do We Know?,” a movie that is kind of hard to categorize. It’s part documentary explaining quantum physics, and what it teaches us about the nature of reality and thus spirituality. It’s also part story – how one woman has trapped herself in a life of pain by clinging mentally to her image of life as a painful place, and how she reorients herself by applying the new spirituality of physics which is really Hinduism.
I think it is quite powerful and might really help the students to think about these things in a different way. But it is long. I taped it, so I’m thinking to put it to a vote . . . I’d actually be more inclined if I could cut the story part out, but perhaps it will be meaningful to them. The movie was meaningful to me in that it challenges us to take seriously the proposition that we create our own reality. Not just spiritually, or psychologically, but materially, physically. We create our own bodies, maybe we even created/are creating/will create the very physical laws by which our universe is governed.
They discuss the connections between how our neurons fire to construct reality in our minds, how our bodies then create proteins and other chemicals that get sent out to our cells. Every emotion, as the Buddha pointed out, has a corresponding physical change – we now call that a chemical. Our cells can thus become addicted to our emotions. We have some control – no – we have total control over that; which neural networks do we construct over and over, by associating certain things together? “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” We can consciously break them, and thus break our addictions.
What if I choose to break my addiction to guilt? To worry? To feelings of inadequacy? To fear about the future? Would I not then be free to create new ways of being in the world? There were three things that really stood out to me that people said. Two actually by the person they interview in the film who annoys me the most. Not exactly sure why she does, her mannerisms, I guess, which may simply be because she’s SO real it makes me uncomfortable.
First, a theologian (Irish), before her says that all the time and effort we’ve put, in the West, into constructing a jealous, rule-crazy, punishing god, is not only incorrect – it is blasphemy. Then she says, to paraphrase, “To think about the immense size and glory and wonder of this universe, and to imagine that our little specks of humanity in the backwaters of the Milky Way can sin against the Creator of all that? It is not possible.” It is, of course, what one automatically understands when they look at the photos from deep space – all those galaxies, all these huge, beautiful, strange nebulae, the trillions and trillions of stars – a God that large could not possibly be seeking opportunities to punish me. As someone else says, it is the ultimate arrogance to create God in one’s own image. Not to mention the tragic waste of time and energy.
Later she says, “Do I think you are bad? No, I don’t think you are bad. I don’t think you are good, either. I think you are God.” Goes back to that Hindu idea of our ultimate responsibility for ourselves. So the third thing is a guy talking about his daily practice of picturing how he would like his day to go, what reality he would like to manifest in his life. People like Shakti Gawain have been saying such things for a long time, and I kind of ended up treating her as a nut. But why not? If we control literally everything, then why cannot I have a day in which I have great energy and enthusiasm and patience for my students? And my husband and family? Why not write application letters that will knock the socks off the people at the perfect liberal arts school for me? Why not a day in which pain has no control?
This will take practice. I need to break many well-established neural networks and chemical addictions. But with time, so they claim, it can be done. And as they, along with the Hindu and Buddhist saints, say, don’t accept this at face value; Try it! See if it works! So I began today, and I’ll keep working at it.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
To continue from 1991
Perhaps inevitably, I came to resent God for making me feel so guilty all of the time, and for throwing so much garbage at me and then blaming me for it (as I understood it at the time). I felt betrayed by God. And as I began to take college classes and to read more widely, I became more aware of the oppression of women in our society and throughout history. I got more and more disgusted with Christianity for the structural and symbolic violence the church has committed against women and other peoples.
I began to read the Bible with a more critical eye, and found a lot of other things I could not understand nor stomach. I began to really question the nature of God. My parents had taught me about the inerrancy of scripture (no, they weren’t absolute literalists, but they did believe that God protected the Bible from mistranslation, etc.), and they had, wisely, taught me the dangers of picking and choosing what you like from the Bible and discarding the rest. What that meant in my late teens, though, was that I was going to have to discard the whole Bible, because there were things in it with which I simply could not bring myself to agree.
March 4, 1991
What if there is a god whose idea of a good time is burning and torturing people in eternal hell fire, and he just threw down Jesus to make the game more challenging? Put God in the role of the devil, trying always to entice people to his hell. It makes as much, if not more, sense than does the idea of a loving God. Maybe it is all a game and God threw Jesus in for confusion, and the object of the game is to see who can figure out which stuff is true and which stuff God was just kidding about.
When I read the Bible now, all I find are things to disagree with. I was just reading it, the one I’ve had for years, and so many of the passages are marked. I know that at one time I derived comfort, guidance, euphoria, excitement, terror, guilt, etc. from those pages. The only feelings that book now provokes in me are contempt and indignation, and confusion.
I’ve always liked to think of Jesus as a great man. A good man, I guess, seeing as he’s been around for so long, he must have been “great” in some definition of the word. But what is troubling me now, is: was he good? I would think he was a lot better if he hadn’t gone around proclaiming himself better than everyone else. Sin free. And not offering the hope that any could be like him. If you believe he was the son of God, then his attitude is proper and fitting. But I don’t. So he just seems pretentious. Maybe even bad. He said a lot of things about hell and eternal condemnation that as a mortal he had no business saying. Was he just using cheap tactics to scare people? Why? How would he gain?
No, I think he really believed what he was saying. Was he insane? Or was he just putting things into words that stupid people would understand? Which they don’t seem to, anyhow, as evidenced by their continual disagreements about what he meant. Perhaps that is what he was trying to do [stir up disagreements]. Yet somehow I can’t believe that. That makes him no better than the best of the TV evangelists who serve us their watered down versions of the gospel grossly distorted by their own interpretations. I think he must have been crazy. That’s the only way I can have respect for him.
Mom used to say that you either have to believe Jesus was the son of God, or that he was nuts. But that’s not true. You could believe he was evil. You could believe he was power-hungry in a weird way. You could believe that he was one of those people (like L. Ron Hubbard) who couldn’t handle being ordinary so he made up a good story. But I want to like Jesus a little bit. So I’m going to see if I can.
March 5, 1991
I would really like to write a convincing “Why I am Not a Christian” book someday. The subject is so huge, though. Whenever I start thinking about it after a short time my mind begins to boggle. The problem is that the whole thing is a big spider web. As soon as you follow one strand just a little way, it connects with another one and the fifty little off-shoots and before you know it you have ten books open in at least two places each and it could just drive you nuts if it wasn’t so much fun.
I guess I need to compile all my questions and set up an appointment to interview Dad to get a Christian point of view. Maybe Mom, too. Some of my questions would be:
1. What is his belief about evolution?
2. Why did Jesus let the demons have their way and sent them into a bunch of innocent pigs that then died?
3. Why did Jesus curse an inanimate object (the fig tree) just because it didn’t have fruit when he wanted it? Wouldn’t it have been more to the point to make it bear fruit?
4. What is his outlook on all the wars that have been fought in Jesus’ name? The Inquisition?
5. What are the ingredients that make a good Christian?
6. What is Christianity supposed to do for them? Why is it good? Does it accomplish these goals?
7. Do you truly believe there is no place in heaven for Gandhi?
8. If no to the above, what about all the little, unpublicized Gandhis?
I began to search for a religion I could believe in. I flirted with Wicca, because I desperately wanted a faith that did not demean or denigrate my femininity. If I had been able to hook up with a good group of women, I might have pursued Wicca more fully. But most of those I knew who were interested were only practicing at a superficial level. They wanted to do magic; wanted to be able to work their own miracles, but they weren’t interested in it as a way of life, a way of honoring the environment and the human body and spirit and finding balance and peace. So that just did not seem like the right answer for me. But I was still pursuing the notion of god as female. I went through a period of consciously referring to the Goddess, always in the feminine, and praying to God the Mother. I already had figured that Ultimate Reality must be genderless, or be all genders at once. But it seemed important to me to redress 2000 years of referring to God only in the masculine. What are the feminine qualities of god that get ignored because we speak only of the male side, and the qualities or characteristics we associate with men? How much more might we see God as nurturing and caring if we emphasized God’s feminine aspect? These questions became important to me (see more to come).
Faith has always been such a huge part of my life, that I really felt its absence. I had an inarticulate belief that there must be a God, even if Christianity was a bunch of bunk, and even if I didn’t always like God. I was sure He/She/It must still be there. In fact, the main reason I went to college at all was because I was reading a lot of philosophy, looking for answers, and realized I needed help to understand what I was reading. I continued to read a lot outside of class, and some of the things I found were very exciting! Such as my introduction to Buddhism and Hinduism via Alan Watts (although I didn’t know it was a blend of those religions at the time).
July 23, 1991
I am so excited about this book! The Book, by Alan Watts. I’ve been trying to read it carefully to make sure I understand every point and don’t miss anything. I want to recap it and see if I really “get it.” Also, by putting it into my own words I can make it more “mine.”
1. The universe and all its organisms are “god” playing hide and seek with itself. Since there is nothing outside of god, it has no one to play with but itself. So to make the game really interesting it hides from itself in individuals (and animals and rocks, etc.) and forgets who it is, so that the seeking part of the game will be more interesting. The ramifications of this are as follows:
a. there is no such thing as “me” as a separate being. There are no separate parts. We’ve just forgotten who we really are.
b. The object is to remember that we are God, or Self, or just one part, one section of the wiggle that is the Universe.
2. The game we play of binary opposition, black-and-white should really be called black vs. white. The point here is that we should learn to see things as black and white, as if they were two sides of the same coin. To see matter and space not as separate parts but as “goingwith” each other. To throw out even such ideas as cause and effect for the idea of “goeswith”. Like there can’t be a mountain if there is no valley. The mountain is not the cause of the valley, or vice versa. They “gowith” each other. What people are trying to do by making ‘good’ conquer ‘evil’ is make everything mountains. It’s impossible. Learn to see what we call ‘things’ are just glimpses of a unified process.
3. You cannot explain what anything is without explaining what it does. Therefore you cannot explain a thing without explaining its environment. Things must be viewed in their own context. And necessarily, you cannot explain one thing without contrasting, comparing, or relating it to another. Even ourselves. I can’t explain who or what I am without comparing myself to others. No one can. If I say, “I am honest,” I am implying that there are people who are not. If I say, “I talk a lot,” compared to whom? How do I know what ‘a lot’ is without knowing what a little is? Even saying “I talk” wouldn’t make sense without describing the point of talking, which includes other people, or organisms. So, we do not even exist except in relation to our environment.
4. A rainbow requires 3 parts. Sunlight, moister in the air, and an observer. Without all three, there is no rainbow. Take away the observer, there is nothing. Same thing as like the tree falling in the forest. With no ear to hear, it makes no sound. Therefore not only do we not exist without the universe, it does not exist without us. We are not separate things. We ‘gowith’ each other.
5. To sum up, and use a term of Alan Watts’ “Each organism is the universe experiencing itself in endless variety.
6. What we do with this information once we have accepted it, and stopped believing in the idea of ‘ego, or being separate from what is outside of our skins, is to become capable of living in that present, to start enjoying life. We begin to see that our ‘enemies’ are really enemy/friends, because without them we don not exist. And, happily, he repeats over and over that life must be played as a game. Lived in the spirit of playing! Also, without this spirit, and without being able to enjoy the present, we have nothing to give. To anyone. Gifts given under our current system of seeing things in parts, and everyone separate and alone and struggling to survive, are more like punishments.
Part of the idea here is Stop Struggling. If life is really a game of hide and seek with the other aspects of oneself, why do we take it so damn seriously?
I’m feeling really good. Like I’m on the right track. I’ll just have to keep reminding myself of what I know and who I am. Cause I’ve been pretty well programmed to think a different way. And it is just so easy to slip back into old patterns.
There were some other things that I don’t want to forget that he (Watts) said. Actually, one of them was what de Chardin really said, “The only real atom is the universe.” Because nothing in the universe could be taken out and still have the universe be the universe. Also, he says the only way of beating the ego is to do an egoistic thing: become more aware of it. Self-knowledge. Also, self-knowledge leads to universe-knowledge, which is wonder. This can only happen when we are content to just be. Which we [M and I] learned from LSD. Correlative vision – one sees that all explicit opposites are implicit allies.
I love that man! I just finished “The Book.” I can’t remember ever identifying with a book so much before. I’m exhilarated and informed and maybe a tiny bit enlightened. I know I should take some time to absorb things, but I want More! I guess the real point is living what I believe, or know. And not forgetting. But I don’t think that can be done by an act of will. I think it just happens when you really know. So how can I know more? I don’t know. Maybe just letting it sit. Spend more time being. Reading more.
I feel like gradually, over the years and months the picture is getting clearer. Sharper. I mean, I remember writing in 1988 that “God is when there is nothing outside of it." So, I’ve known little parts for awhile. They keep coming clearer. IT does. But it takes time for new ideas and realizations to become fact in your head. There are so many older, ingrained “facts” that have to be uprooted and pushed out.
It is such a long process because, I suppose, “That which must be learned cannot be taught.” I hope it does keep going on and on. Another thing Watts said that I really like is, “There is nothing to be gained.” What a relief! On the surface, I think that statement would frighten many people, give them a feeling of hopelessness. But to me, what a relief. It means there is nothing to work for. That means there is no reason to work. And that enables me to live life in the spirit of playfulness. In theory, anyway. You know, this may sound odd but it holds a lot of meaning: I feel like reading Alice in Wonderland. That book gives me the same feeling of wonderfulness and even enlightenment. I think they both say the same type of thing, which is, “Everything you thought was, isn’t; and everything you thought wasn’t, is.” Or – everything you know is wrong. This is how you feel on acid, too.
As this jouranl entry indicates, I had been having a few insights here and there for awhile, but Watts helped me pull a lot of things together for the first time, and laid a foundation that I realize now I am still building on.
Becoming familiar with other religious traditions and alternative philosophies allowed me to view Christianity with more objectivity. Instead of being hostile to the entire religion in general, I gradually became more able to separate out doctrine from polity, and to appreciate the beauty of the faith, even while I still hated much of what passed for Christianity around me.
September 16, 1991
My alarm just went off. It somehow got set to a religious station. Oh brother! is all I have to say to that. Poor Christians. It must really suck to all those honest, Jesus following Christians to have these load-mouthed fundamentalists presenting such a false image of what Christianity is. People who didn’t have a background like mine think the TV Christianity is how it is. Many more people would probably be Christians if it weren’t for those idiot media preachers. Even though I don’t believe in Christianity any more, it still angers me to see people being misled. Not to mention cheated out of their money. It is so sad to see people clinging to a belief that is so obviously untrue. I mean, at least the teachings of Jesus are worth believing in. Worth dying for maybe, for those who really live them. But who am I to judge? Maybe a lot of these people are truly comforted by the TV version, and I suppose that would make it worth it to them to give their money. Still, no one should have to pay for comfort, or peace. I think it is wrong to tell people that it is possible to pay with money for something that can only be bought with the soul. Again, who am I to judge? We all have our own lessons to learn in our own way and at our own times.
September 18, 1991
My mom and I had an interesting talk last night. We talked about prayer. She said that she’s still praying that I’ll find Jesus. That in Jesus I will find my place in the Universe. I told her that I understood that is what she believes, and that I respect it. Sometimes I wish I could believe it just to make her and Dad happy. But that would be wrong. I’m thinking about how she was saying something about knowing God and Jesus, and I said it was almost the same thing as I believe, except the Jesus part. She said Jesus is the fundamental part. But I’m realizing again that the concepts of God and Goddess are not interchangeable. They are not “almost the same thing.” I should start working out the differences, so I can tell her when I need to.
God Goddess
Male Female
Outside Inside
“Good” “Good” and “Evil”/Balance
Trinity – father, son, spirit Trinity – crone, mother, maid
Linear – life, heaven or hell cyclical – life, death, life
She also said she prays that God will reveal the truth to me in whatever way “He” chooses. I said I did, too, and she said, “I know.” At least they give me credit for really trying to find the truth.
I just thought of an analogy for death. The way I believe it. It’s like a huge pot of coffee. You pour a cup, and that represents one life. Without drinking, you pour the contents of the cup back into the pot. That’s death. At some point, you pour another cup, and that’s another life. Maybe needs more explaining but I don’t have time. Oh, maybe Leggos would explain it better! Yes! But time for school.
December 4, 1991
I was thinking the other day that sometimes it seems as if I am waiting for Christianity to be proved true. Even though intellectually I am absolutely sure it isn’t true, the religion is so ingrained in me that I can’t quite get away from it. It still shocks me when I meet people who so completely disbelieve it that there is no room for considering it in them. I admire and even envy such people. Like Laura. Especially when I understand that it is fear that makes me cling to the shreds of my belief. I’m still afraid of being wrong. I still talk to Jesus occasionally, trying to explain why I don’t believe in him. Asking him to please understand and intercede for me if it turns out I was wrong, on the basis that I am looking for truth.
I guess it isn’t that silly when you know how thoroughly the religion penetrated into my head, and at what an early age. I mean, I was three years old when I knew enough about not wanting to go the hell that I asked Jesus into my heart. 3!!! It was a very spiritual experience, too. I knew exactly what I was doing.
Have I ever told you about the blackness that exists, like right behind me? It’s this vast, timeless void. I especially feel it when I’m on acid. I can actually see it sometimes. I am afraid of it. I don’t know if it is my contact with infinity, or what. I’ve always thought that everyone had that. That everyone, particularly everyone who has done LSD, could feel it there. But guess what? Everyone doesn’t. Nobody else does, except maybe M. I don’t remember talking to him about it, but I can almost see it behind his eyes. Anyway, I wonder if it was put there by Christianity. It could also have been from early traumatic experiences, I suppose. Especially something that made me feel guilty, and bad. Or perhaps it was a combo of both.
I remember that as far back as I can think of I was looking out of this black hole. Sometimes it is like only my eyes could peer out of it, the rest of my body was lost in it. Now that I know that not everyone has it I don’t want it either. Not that I wanted it before, I didn’t realize you could be without it.
It frightens other people when I talk about it, so it makes me wonder just what kind of fear I’ve been living with all my life. I don’t even know if the blackness would represent God or Satan. To me they both seem as uncaring as the other. It seems like neither one of them would mind putting a yawning black hole into a little girl’s head.
I began to read the Bible with a more critical eye, and found a lot of other things I could not understand nor stomach. I began to really question the nature of God. My parents had taught me about the inerrancy of scripture (no, they weren’t absolute literalists, but they did believe that God protected the Bible from mistranslation, etc.), and they had, wisely, taught me the dangers of picking and choosing what you like from the Bible and discarding the rest. What that meant in my late teens, though, was that I was going to have to discard the whole Bible, because there were things in it with which I simply could not bring myself to agree.
March 4, 1991
What if there is a god whose idea of a good time is burning and torturing people in eternal hell fire, and he just threw down Jesus to make the game more challenging? Put God in the role of the devil, trying always to entice people to his hell. It makes as much, if not more, sense than does the idea of a loving God. Maybe it is all a game and God threw Jesus in for confusion, and the object of the game is to see who can figure out which stuff is true and which stuff God was just kidding about.
When I read the Bible now, all I find are things to disagree with. I was just reading it, the one I’ve had for years, and so many of the passages are marked. I know that at one time I derived comfort, guidance, euphoria, excitement, terror, guilt, etc. from those pages. The only feelings that book now provokes in me are contempt and indignation, and confusion.
I’ve always liked to think of Jesus as a great man. A good man, I guess, seeing as he’s been around for so long, he must have been “great” in some definition of the word. But what is troubling me now, is: was he good? I would think he was a lot better if he hadn’t gone around proclaiming himself better than everyone else. Sin free. And not offering the hope that any could be like him. If you believe he was the son of God, then his attitude is proper and fitting. But I don’t. So he just seems pretentious. Maybe even bad. He said a lot of things about hell and eternal condemnation that as a mortal he had no business saying. Was he just using cheap tactics to scare people? Why? How would he gain?
No, I think he really believed what he was saying. Was he insane? Or was he just putting things into words that stupid people would understand? Which they don’t seem to, anyhow, as evidenced by their continual disagreements about what he meant. Perhaps that is what he was trying to do [stir up disagreements]. Yet somehow I can’t believe that. That makes him no better than the best of the TV evangelists who serve us their watered down versions of the gospel grossly distorted by their own interpretations. I think he must have been crazy. That’s the only way I can have respect for him.
Mom used to say that you either have to believe Jesus was the son of God, or that he was nuts. But that’s not true. You could believe he was evil. You could believe he was power-hungry in a weird way. You could believe that he was one of those people (like L. Ron Hubbard) who couldn’t handle being ordinary so he made up a good story. But I want to like Jesus a little bit. So I’m going to see if I can.
March 5, 1991
I would really like to write a convincing “Why I am Not a Christian” book someday. The subject is so huge, though. Whenever I start thinking about it after a short time my mind begins to boggle. The problem is that the whole thing is a big spider web. As soon as you follow one strand just a little way, it connects with another one and the fifty little off-shoots and before you know it you have ten books open in at least two places each and it could just drive you nuts if it wasn’t so much fun.
I guess I need to compile all my questions and set up an appointment to interview Dad to get a Christian point of view. Maybe Mom, too. Some of my questions would be:
1. What is his belief about evolution?
2. Why did Jesus let the demons have their way and sent them into a bunch of innocent pigs that then died?
3. Why did Jesus curse an inanimate object (the fig tree) just because it didn’t have fruit when he wanted it? Wouldn’t it have been more to the point to make it bear fruit?
4. What is his outlook on all the wars that have been fought in Jesus’ name? The Inquisition?
5. What are the ingredients that make a good Christian?
6. What is Christianity supposed to do for them? Why is it good? Does it accomplish these goals?
7. Do you truly believe there is no place in heaven for Gandhi?
8. If no to the above, what about all the little, unpublicized Gandhis?
I began to search for a religion I could believe in. I flirted with Wicca, because I desperately wanted a faith that did not demean or denigrate my femininity. If I had been able to hook up with a good group of women, I might have pursued Wicca more fully. But most of those I knew who were interested were only practicing at a superficial level. They wanted to do magic; wanted to be able to work their own miracles, but they weren’t interested in it as a way of life, a way of honoring the environment and the human body and spirit and finding balance and peace. So that just did not seem like the right answer for me. But I was still pursuing the notion of god as female. I went through a period of consciously referring to the Goddess, always in the feminine, and praying to God the Mother. I already had figured that Ultimate Reality must be genderless, or be all genders at once. But it seemed important to me to redress 2000 years of referring to God only in the masculine. What are the feminine qualities of god that get ignored because we speak only of the male side, and the qualities or characteristics we associate with men? How much more might we see God as nurturing and caring if we emphasized God’s feminine aspect? These questions became important to me (see more to come).
Faith has always been such a huge part of my life, that I really felt its absence. I had an inarticulate belief that there must be a God, even if Christianity was a bunch of bunk, and even if I didn’t always like God. I was sure He/She/It must still be there. In fact, the main reason I went to college at all was because I was reading a lot of philosophy, looking for answers, and realized I needed help to understand what I was reading. I continued to read a lot outside of class, and some of the things I found were very exciting! Such as my introduction to Buddhism and Hinduism via Alan Watts (although I didn’t know it was a blend of those religions at the time).
July 23, 1991
I am so excited about this book! The Book, by Alan Watts. I’ve been trying to read it carefully to make sure I understand every point and don’t miss anything. I want to recap it and see if I really “get it.” Also, by putting it into my own words I can make it more “mine.”
1. The universe and all its organisms are “god” playing hide and seek with itself. Since there is nothing outside of god, it has no one to play with but itself. So to make the game really interesting it hides from itself in individuals (and animals and rocks, etc.) and forgets who it is, so that the seeking part of the game will be more interesting. The ramifications of this are as follows:
a. there is no such thing as “me” as a separate being. There are no separate parts. We’ve just forgotten who we really are.
b. The object is to remember that we are God, or Self, or just one part, one section of the wiggle that is the Universe.
2. The game we play of binary opposition, black-and-white should really be called black vs. white. The point here is that we should learn to see things as black and white, as if they were two sides of the same coin. To see matter and space not as separate parts but as “goingwith” each other. To throw out even such ideas as cause and effect for the idea of “goeswith”. Like there can’t be a mountain if there is no valley. The mountain is not the cause of the valley, or vice versa. They “gowith” each other. What people are trying to do by making ‘good’ conquer ‘evil’ is make everything mountains. It’s impossible. Learn to see what we call ‘things’ are just glimpses of a unified process.
3. You cannot explain what anything is without explaining what it does. Therefore you cannot explain a thing without explaining its environment. Things must be viewed in their own context. And necessarily, you cannot explain one thing without contrasting, comparing, or relating it to another. Even ourselves. I can’t explain who or what I am without comparing myself to others. No one can. If I say, “I am honest,” I am implying that there are people who are not. If I say, “I talk a lot,” compared to whom? How do I know what ‘a lot’ is without knowing what a little is? Even saying “I talk” wouldn’t make sense without describing the point of talking, which includes other people, or organisms. So, we do not even exist except in relation to our environment.
4. A rainbow requires 3 parts. Sunlight, moister in the air, and an observer. Without all three, there is no rainbow. Take away the observer, there is nothing. Same thing as like the tree falling in the forest. With no ear to hear, it makes no sound. Therefore not only do we not exist without the universe, it does not exist without us. We are not separate things. We ‘gowith’ each other.
5. To sum up, and use a term of Alan Watts’ “Each organism is the universe experiencing itself in endless variety.
6. What we do with this information once we have accepted it, and stopped believing in the idea of ‘ego, or being separate from what is outside of our skins, is to become capable of living in that present, to start enjoying life. We begin to see that our ‘enemies’ are really enemy/friends, because without them we don not exist. And, happily, he repeats over and over that life must be played as a game. Lived in the spirit of playing! Also, without this spirit, and without being able to enjoy the present, we have nothing to give. To anyone. Gifts given under our current system of seeing things in parts, and everyone separate and alone and struggling to survive, are more like punishments.
Part of the idea here is Stop Struggling. If life is really a game of hide and seek with the other aspects of oneself, why do we take it so damn seriously?
I’m feeling really good. Like I’m on the right track. I’ll just have to keep reminding myself of what I know and who I am. Cause I’ve been pretty well programmed to think a different way. And it is just so easy to slip back into old patterns.
There were some other things that I don’t want to forget that he (Watts) said. Actually, one of them was what de Chardin really said, “The only real atom is the universe.” Because nothing in the universe could be taken out and still have the universe be the universe. Also, he says the only way of beating the ego is to do an egoistic thing: become more aware of it. Self-knowledge. Also, self-knowledge leads to universe-knowledge, which is wonder. This can only happen when we are content to just be. Which we [M and I] learned from LSD. Correlative vision – one sees that all explicit opposites are implicit allies.
I love that man! I just finished “The Book.” I can’t remember ever identifying with a book so much before. I’m exhilarated and informed and maybe a tiny bit enlightened. I know I should take some time to absorb things, but I want More! I guess the real point is living what I believe, or know. And not forgetting. But I don’t think that can be done by an act of will. I think it just happens when you really know. So how can I know more? I don’t know. Maybe just letting it sit. Spend more time being. Reading more.
I feel like gradually, over the years and months the picture is getting clearer. Sharper. I mean, I remember writing in 1988 that “God is when there is nothing outside of it." So, I’ve known little parts for awhile. They keep coming clearer. IT does. But it takes time for new ideas and realizations to become fact in your head. There are so many older, ingrained “facts” that have to be uprooted and pushed out.
It is such a long process because, I suppose, “That which must be learned cannot be taught.” I hope it does keep going on and on. Another thing Watts said that I really like is, “There is nothing to be gained.” What a relief! On the surface, I think that statement would frighten many people, give them a feeling of hopelessness. But to me, what a relief. It means there is nothing to work for. That means there is no reason to work. And that enables me to live life in the spirit of playfulness. In theory, anyway. You know, this may sound odd but it holds a lot of meaning: I feel like reading Alice in Wonderland. That book gives me the same feeling of wonderfulness and even enlightenment. I think they both say the same type of thing, which is, “Everything you thought was, isn’t; and everything you thought wasn’t, is.” Or – everything you know is wrong. This is how you feel on acid, too.
As this jouranl entry indicates, I had been having a few insights here and there for awhile, but Watts helped me pull a lot of things together for the first time, and laid a foundation that I realize now I am still building on.
Becoming familiar with other religious traditions and alternative philosophies allowed me to view Christianity with more objectivity. Instead of being hostile to the entire religion in general, I gradually became more able to separate out doctrine from polity, and to appreciate the beauty of the faith, even while I still hated much of what passed for Christianity around me.
September 16, 1991
My alarm just went off. It somehow got set to a religious station. Oh brother! is all I have to say to that. Poor Christians. It must really suck to all those honest, Jesus following Christians to have these load-mouthed fundamentalists presenting such a false image of what Christianity is. People who didn’t have a background like mine think the TV Christianity is how it is. Many more people would probably be Christians if it weren’t for those idiot media preachers. Even though I don’t believe in Christianity any more, it still angers me to see people being misled. Not to mention cheated out of their money. It is so sad to see people clinging to a belief that is so obviously untrue. I mean, at least the teachings of Jesus are worth believing in. Worth dying for maybe, for those who really live them. But who am I to judge? Maybe a lot of these people are truly comforted by the TV version, and I suppose that would make it worth it to them to give their money. Still, no one should have to pay for comfort, or peace. I think it is wrong to tell people that it is possible to pay with money for something that can only be bought with the soul. Again, who am I to judge? We all have our own lessons to learn in our own way and at our own times.
September 18, 1991
My mom and I had an interesting talk last night. We talked about prayer. She said that she’s still praying that I’ll find Jesus. That in Jesus I will find my place in the Universe. I told her that I understood that is what she believes, and that I respect it. Sometimes I wish I could believe it just to make her and Dad happy. But that would be wrong. I’m thinking about how she was saying something about knowing God and Jesus, and I said it was almost the same thing as I believe, except the Jesus part. She said Jesus is the fundamental part. But I’m realizing again that the concepts of God and Goddess are not interchangeable. They are not “almost the same thing.” I should start working out the differences, so I can tell her when I need to.
God Goddess
Male Female
Outside Inside
“Good” “Good” and “Evil”/Balance
Trinity – father, son, spirit Trinity – crone, mother, maid
Linear – life, heaven or hell cyclical – life, death, life
She also said she prays that God will reveal the truth to me in whatever way “He” chooses. I said I did, too, and she said, “I know.” At least they give me credit for really trying to find the truth.
I just thought of an analogy for death. The way I believe it. It’s like a huge pot of coffee. You pour a cup, and that represents one life. Without drinking, you pour the contents of the cup back into the pot. That’s death. At some point, you pour another cup, and that’s another life. Maybe needs more explaining but I don’t have time. Oh, maybe Leggos would explain it better! Yes! But time for school.
December 4, 1991
I was thinking the other day that sometimes it seems as if I am waiting for Christianity to be proved true. Even though intellectually I am absolutely sure it isn’t true, the religion is so ingrained in me that I can’t quite get away from it. It still shocks me when I meet people who so completely disbelieve it that there is no room for considering it in them. I admire and even envy such people. Like Laura. Especially when I understand that it is fear that makes me cling to the shreds of my belief. I’m still afraid of being wrong. I still talk to Jesus occasionally, trying to explain why I don’t believe in him. Asking him to please understand and intercede for me if it turns out I was wrong, on the basis that I am looking for truth.
I guess it isn’t that silly when you know how thoroughly the religion penetrated into my head, and at what an early age. I mean, I was three years old when I knew enough about not wanting to go the hell that I asked Jesus into my heart. 3!!! It was a very spiritual experience, too. I knew exactly what I was doing.
Have I ever told you about the blackness that exists, like right behind me? It’s this vast, timeless void. I especially feel it when I’m on acid. I can actually see it sometimes. I am afraid of it. I don’t know if it is my contact with infinity, or what. I’ve always thought that everyone had that. That everyone, particularly everyone who has done LSD, could feel it there. But guess what? Everyone doesn’t. Nobody else does, except maybe M. I don’t remember talking to him about it, but I can almost see it behind his eyes. Anyway, I wonder if it was put there by Christianity. It could also have been from early traumatic experiences, I suppose. Especially something that made me feel guilty, and bad. Or perhaps it was a combo of both.
I remember that as far back as I can think of I was looking out of this black hole. Sometimes it is like only my eyes could peer out of it, the rest of my body was lost in it. Now that I know that not everyone has it I don’t want it either. Not that I wanted it before, I didn’t realize you could be without it.
It frightens other people when I talk about it, so it makes me wonder just what kind of fear I’ve been living with all my life. I don’t even know if the blackness would represent God or Satan. To me they both seem as uncaring as the other. It seems like neither one of them would mind putting a yawning black hole into a little girl’s head.
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