Only a Blockhead

On Enlightenment

A few years back fellow Blockhead Julian and I had a discussion (off-blog) about enlightenment: whether such a state exists, and if it does whether it is worth pursuing.  Basically Julian answered yes, and I answered no.  This, by Mr. Furious, reminded me of that discussion:

The adventure lies in getting up every morning and not only figuring out a way to get out of bed and dealing with all the oppressive daily minutia, but in succeeding and in being triumphant and still finding room to love, care, and suffer for other people. To enjoy such true-blue miracles as the cherry and plum blossoms sprouting every spring, the mosquitoes flying into your ear, the peanut butter sandwiches with a little honey and sliced bananas is true enlightenment. Why do you think all of the really smart, spiritual poets write about everyday things? Basho wrote about frogs, snowy mornings, and a monk drinking tea. Issa wrote about spiders, idiot poets who write about snow, and flies making love. Po Chi I wrote about laziness. Li Po wrote about getting drunk and looking at the moon. Ikkyu wrote about jacking off and performing cunnilingus. Bukowski wrote about fighting bullies on the playground. The GZA wrote about Larry’s Bird flying out of Nicholas Cage. Lao Tzu wrote,

“Without going out of doors one may know the whole world; without looking out of the window, one may see the Way of Heaven. The further one travels, the less one may know.”

These are the adventures.

But not to an enlightened person.

Read the whole thing here.

--David

We've Needed this Book for a Long Time

My annoyance really peaked when I read through these catalogues, and saw that the endless sessions advertised in them all seemed to sit happily side-by-side. Yet if you literally believed the metaphysical and empirical claims they made and implied, they were more often than not logically incompatible. There seemed to be an illogical almost anti-rational and extreme open-mindedness. No claim, no matter how preposterous or unfeasible, seemed to be unacceptable—and to question the claims was seen as either spiritually naïve or as being locked into some kind of pro-conflict, old-religion mindset of harsh exclusivism. For me, when looking at particular new-age material this ‘everyone is right, all paths are valid’ approach was not only untenable and intellectually insulting, it all too often edged into smugness.

From How Contemporary Spirituality Makes Us Stupid, Selfish, and Unhappy by David Webster.

—David

Still With Us

New Agers, it seems have always been with us, and, mysteriously, people often take them seriously.  I write about some proto-New Agers, and the people who took them seriously, in my review of Andrei Znamenski's Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia.  You can read it here.

—David

Let's Get Spiritual

Me on The Tibetan Book of the Dead": A Biography by Robert S. Lopez:

In 2005 a journalist telephoned the eminent scholar of Buddhism and Tibetan Studies, Donald S. Lopez, Jr., and asked him whether "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" was the most important work in Tibetan Buddhism.

"No," Lopez replied.

"Do all Tibetans own a copy?"

"No."

"Have all Tibetans read it?"

Again, "no."

The journalist makes a final attempt:

"Have all Tibetans heard of it?"

Lopez: "Probably not."

More here.

—David

Oh Wow, Man

—David

Transcendent Whooshes

David Brooks summarizes the findings of  philosophers Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly:

Dreyfus and Kelly say that we should have the courage not to look for some unitary, totalistic explanation for the universe. Instead, we should live perceptively at the surface, receptive to the moments of transcendent whooshes that we can feel in, say, a concert crowd, or while engaging in a meaningful activity, like making a perfect cup of coffee with a well-crafted pot and cup.

We should not expect these experiences to cohere into a single “meaning of life.” Transcendent experiences are plural and incompatible. We should instead cultivate a spirit of gratitude and wonder for the many excellent things the world supplies.

Brooks being Brooks, he of course cannot quite go along with them—he rather likes "totalistic explanations of the universe"—but it seems eminently sensible to me.  It also seems obvious, but it bears restating in a world where so many of those who natter on about "awareness" seem unaware of the potential pleasures with which their lives are filled, and where so many people spend so much of their time (and money) seeking something—whether they call it God (old school) or enlightenment (the cool kids)—beyond those flashes of pleasure.

Brooks's article is here.   Dreyfus and Kelly's book is All Things Shining.

—David