fookisan
Guest
"Academic smarts are not the same as peace smarts"
I was recently discussing 'spiritual aspects of living' on various online forums. One group was composed of dedicated atheists, some quite bitter I might add. But to be fair to the atheists, I've known many a religious fellow that are just as bitter, if not more so, than atheists I meet. So just being 'religious' is not a guarantee of being at peace. Each man made religion contains perfection's as well as imperfections. It is up to the practitioner or end user to use the tools in the right way. The problem is not the wisdom that is defective. The problem lies with religious practitioners who are defective in their practice of this wisdom. The wisdom works - we don't work the wisdom. Many times we are too busy for peace. As one list member wrote, 'It took awhile - far too long, really - but I've finally found that one can find peace by simply being undisturbed." Peace is our birthright, if we are not destroying it by our own actions. In order to slow down enough to be able to use peace as a tool I needed to apply simplicity and renunciation to my life. I am not an acetic or total renunciate by any means, but I did have to let go of many peace destroying habits before making room for inner peace to enter my life. As we get rid of one thing, it make room for another thing to enter.
The online discussions based in bitterness brought up the question of "what guiding light do atheists use to be at peace?" Not much was offered in reply to my question. I got a few answers here or there. It seems whenever the discussion turns to 'inner peace' many of the people I talk with are silent, this even goes for the so called pious fellows such as Catholic priests. But, one fellow on the forum mentioned 'truth and philosophy,' as his tools - both of these being good answers for peace generation with proper application. Philosophy plays a big role in my life as well for providing tools to live at peace. I also supplement my spiritual path from many other sources as I will go into below. I am only interested in practical application of philosophy though and not bickering and arguing over the unanswerable. So, I prefer truth based discussions over ego based discussions where the truth gets overshadowed by rhetoric. As someone once wrote ... "if you don't know the answer then just say so."
I was at a philosophy symposium last year and talked with a professor about a teaching / mentor relationship he had with Ayn Rand. He went on to say how after a year they broke up the mentor relationship on a sour note. After I questioned the professor about Rand's personal life as well as her state of inner peace and happiness, I could see that with all her talents of 'smarts' she was bankrupt when the subject turned to peace smarts, contentment and happiness. She was ego based and not practice based when it came to peace generation. Furthermore, she not only destroyed her peace, but from the information that came out of our discussion, the then student's peace was disturbed at the time and it still sounded disturbed decades later as a distinguished professor and author. Academic smarts are not the same as peace smarts.
The branch of philosophy that deals with the study of ethics and virtue has also helped me along in life. What is virtue and ethics? Some authorities define it as 'excellence of the soul' or moral excellence. (Although the Greeks thought of 'soul and form' in different terms than say Christians think of soul. For example, the soul of an eye would be its ability to 'see' and whether this ability was good or bad would decide whether the soul of an eye had 'virtue' or excellence.) The concept of understanding virtue can be told in a story of the 'Ring of Gyges' or 'Myth of Gyges'. This story was taken from Plato's Republic and recounts how the shepherd Gyges finds a ring on a hand extending from a crack in the earth and removes the ring from the hand and puts it on. Gyges discovers the magic ring gives him powers to be invisible at will and then uses these powers to kill the king, rape the queen and take over the kingdom. As James Allen tells us in "As A Man Thinketh" - "Circumstances does not make the man - it reveals him to himself"
What is virtuous behavior in a flourishing human being? In readily understandable terms we can help define virtue for us from this story of Gyges and by asking ourselves the question, "What would we do if no one was looking or we knew we would not get caught?" No heaven, no hell, no karma, no police, nothing but us and our virtue? Would our actions promote our inner peace as well as the inner peace of others or would our actions destroy our peace and the peace of others? Virtue is not learned from the classroom, other than memorizing definitions. Remember, a fool can only say what he knows ~ it takes a wise man to know what he says. How do we become a success at living a virtuous life and really know what we say? As a lecture on Aristotle mentioned: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." We develop it by practice. Practicing 'excellence of the human soul' is how.
Beside the philosophical studies of ethics and virtue, a Buddhist practice is another good peace developer for an atheist. Buddhists are not required to believe or not believe in God, so anyone can make use of this philosophy irrespective of their religious beliefs or lack thereof. (I discuss many other options for atheists in an earlier post, "I am having trouble with Steps 2 and 3.") I've settled on the essence of Buddhism and that is what I work on and find much peace with this type of simplified Buddhist practice.
"The Three Pillars of Buddhism"
1- Practicing mindfulness and meditation to develop peace and self awareness of our own true nature.
2- Accepting the liberating wisdom of impermanence and practicing non-clinging and a lessening of craving and desires.
3- The development of compassion for others.
In addition to the three pillars, we can use the eightfold path to guide us. Within the three pillars and the eightfold path are a lifetime of practice. No need to get lost in endless debate and spend your precious time in idle talk that only serves to massage one's ego. Plenty of work to do right here, right now, unless we prefer to keep our minds distracted through our perpetual complexities we are so addicted to. We do need to give some thought of the 'right' way to live as the eightfold path tells us, so we should never try and be devoid of thought in our lives, but instead look for a balance and let thought serve us for once.
"The Eightfold Path"
1. Right View
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
How can you differentiate right from wrong? By peace. You learn what destroys your peace and the peace of others as well as what promotes you inner peace and the inner peace of others. Do you need a teacher for that? Or the Pope to tell you? Or just listen to peace as the best teacher?
The Five precepts are the 'commandments' more or less for Buddhists. Although you are not commanded to do a thing. If you wish to live at peace, then proceed the best you can - but it is your choice.
"The Five Precepts"
1. Refrain from Killing
2. Refrain from Stealing
3. Refrain from Sexual Misconduct
4. Refrain from False Speech
5. Refrain from the Use of Intoxicants
Once I am at peace, I can share with others about finding peace for themselves, which is the secondary reason I practice. I have no interest in practicing Buddhism for extinguishing reincarnation. These "fear based" reasons for being a Buddhist are not authentic or natural - the persons actions are based on fear or negative consequences otherwise they would not do them. My actions are based on inner peace and if I stray - there goes my peace - it is my choice. Remember what I wrote about above with the myth of Gyges? Take away the fear of pain of karma or hell and you have a different person? A truly virtuous life remains the same irrespective of such fears and is not based on them. I enjoy life and realize that due to natural law, suffering comes about as part of the process and I accept it as a fair trade off for the privilege of living, so I would enjoy any reincarnation if given the privilege. Buddhism helps makes this trade off of life and pain more in my favor by lending me support to live a life at peace. I do not practice Buddhism to earn merit for the next life - I practice Buddhism for my own peace generation in THIS LIFE.
...continued
I was recently discussing 'spiritual aspects of living' on various online forums. One group was composed of dedicated atheists, some quite bitter I might add. But to be fair to the atheists, I've known many a religious fellow that are just as bitter, if not more so, than atheists I meet. So just being 'religious' is not a guarantee of being at peace. Each man made religion contains perfection's as well as imperfections. It is up to the practitioner or end user to use the tools in the right way. The problem is not the wisdom that is defective. The problem lies with religious practitioners who are defective in their practice of this wisdom. The wisdom works - we don't work the wisdom. Many times we are too busy for peace. As one list member wrote, 'It took awhile - far too long, really - but I've finally found that one can find peace by simply being undisturbed." Peace is our birthright, if we are not destroying it by our own actions. In order to slow down enough to be able to use peace as a tool I needed to apply simplicity and renunciation to my life. I am not an acetic or total renunciate by any means, but I did have to let go of many peace destroying habits before making room for inner peace to enter my life. As we get rid of one thing, it make room for another thing to enter.
The online discussions based in bitterness brought up the question of "what guiding light do atheists use to be at peace?" Not much was offered in reply to my question. I got a few answers here or there. It seems whenever the discussion turns to 'inner peace' many of the people I talk with are silent, this even goes for the so called pious fellows such as Catholic priests. But, one fellow on the forum mentioned 'truth and philosophy,' as his tools - both of these being good answers for peace generation with proper application. Philosophy plays a big role in my life as well for providing tools to live at peace. I also supplement my spiritual path from many other sources as I will go into below. I am only interested in practical application of philosophy though and not bickering and arguing over the unanswerable. So, I prefer truth based discussions over ego based discussions where the truth gets overshadowed by rhetoric. As someone once wrote ... "if you don't know the answer then just say so."
I was at a philosophy symposium last year and talked with a professor about a teaching / mentor relationship he had with Ayn Rand. He went on to say how after a year they broke up the mentor relationship on a sour note. After I questioned the professor about Rand's personal life as well as her state of inner peace and happiness, I could see that with all her talents of 'smarts' she was bankrupt when the subject turned to peace smarts, contentment and happiness. She was ego based and not practice based when it came to peace generation. Furthermore, she not only destroyed her peace, but from the information that came out of our discussion, the then student's peace was disturbed at the time and it still sounded disturbed decades later as a distinguished professor and author. Academic smarts are not the same as peace smarts.
The branch of philosophy that deals with the study of ethics and virtue has also helped me along in life. What is virtue and ethics? Some authorities define it as 'excellence of the soul' or moral excellence. (Although the Greeks thought of 'soul and form' in different terms than say Christians think of soul. For example, the soul of an eye would be its ability to 'see' and whether this ability was good or bad would decide whether the soul of an eye had 'virtue' or excellence.) The concept of understanding virtue can be told in a story of the 'Ring of Gyges' or 'Myth of Gyges'. This story was taken from Plato's Republic and recounts how the shepherd Gyges finds a ring on a hand extending from a crack in the earth and removes the ring from the hand and puts it on. Gyges discovers the magic ring gives him powers to be invisible at will and then uses these powers to kill the king, rape the queen and take over the kingdom. As James Allen tells us in "As A Man Thinketh" - "Circumstances does not make the man - it reveals him to himself"
What is virtuous behavior in a flourishing human being? In readily understandable terms we can help define virtue for us from this story of Gyges and by asking ourselves the question, "What would we do if no one was looking or we knew we would not get caught?" No heaven, no hell, no karma, no police, nothing but us and our virtue? Would our actions promote our inner peace as well as the inner peace of others or would our actions destroy our peace and the peace of others? Virtue is not learned from the classroom, other than memorizing definitions. Remember, a fool can only say what he knows ~ it takes a wise man to know what he says. How do we become a success at living a virtuous life and really know what we say? As a lecture on Aristotle mentioned: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." We develop it by practice. Practicing 'excellence of the human soul' is how.
Beside the philosophical studies of ethics and virtue, a Buddhist practice is another good peace developer for an atheist. Buddhists are not required to believe or not believe in God, so anyone can make use of this philosophy irrespective of their religious beliefs or lack thereof. (I discuss many other options for atheists in an earlier post, "I am having trouble with Steps 2 and 3.") I've settled on the essence of Buddhism and that is what I work on and find much peace with this type of simplified Buddhist practice.
"The Three Pillars of Buddhism"
1- Practicing mindfulness and meditation to develop peace and self awareness of our own true nature.
2- Accepting the liberating wisdom of impermanence and practicing non-clinging and a lessening of craving and desires.
3- The development of compassion for others.
In addition to the three pillars, we can use the eightfold path to guide us. Within the three pillars and the eightfold path are a lifetime of practice. No need to get lost in endless debate and spend your precious time in idle talk that only serves to massage one's ego. Plenty of work to do right here, right now, unless we prefer to keep our minds distracted through our perpetual complexities we are so addicted to. We do need to give some thought of the 'right' way to live as the eightfold path tells us, so we should never try and be devoid of thought in our lives, but instead look for a balance and let thought serve us for once.
"The Eightfold Path"
1. Right View
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
How can you differentiate right from wrong? By peace. You learn what destroys your peace and the peace of others as well as what promotes you inner peace and the inner peace of others. Do you need a teacher for that? Or the Pope to tell you? Or just listen to peace as the best teacher?
The Five precepts are the 'commandments' more or less for Buddhists. Although you are not commanded to do a thing. If you wish to live at peace, then proceed the best you can - but it is your choice.
"The Five Precepts"
1. Refrain from Killing
2. Refrain from Stealing
3. Refrain from Sexual Misconduct
4. Refrain from False Speech
5. Refrain from the Use of Intoxicants
Once I am at peace, I can share with others about finding peace for themselves, which is the secondary reason I practice. I have no interest in practicing Buddhism for extinguishing reincarnation. These "fear based" reasons for being a Buddhist are not authentic or natural - the persons actions are based on fear or negative consequences otherwise they would not do them. My actions are based on inner peace and if I stray - there goes my peace - it is my choice. Remember what I wrote about above with the myth of Gyges? Take away the fear of pain of karma or hell and you have a different person? A truly virtuous life remains the same irrespective of such fears and is not based on them. I enjoy life and realize that due to natural law, suffering comes about as part of the process and I accept it as a fair trade off for the privilege of living, so I would enjoy any reincarnation if given the privilege. Buddhism helps makes this trade off of life and pain more in my favor by lending me support to live a life at peace. I do not practice Buddhism to earn merit for the next life - I practice Buddhism for my own peace generation in THIS LIFE.
...continued