We stood and watched over the dog as it died. Two people volunteered to take the dog to the woman’s house and bury it in the garden. I gave the police my name and number then went home. Here I sit. Just now I hear the air ambulance taking off from the health clinic, headed for the hospital in the city.

I can think of all sorts of things about the driver’s culpability. The worse being that he only returned to the scene because he was on a small island and could not get off without being caught. But this isn’t the root of my emotional response, it is just a logical construction. My partner tells me to think about how young the driver was, that he probably just panicked. She is right. The driver may just as well have come back to the scene because he worried about the woman he hit. Who knows what he was thinking? All I can say is that it will be horrible for him because it will change his life. And all for a moment of not paying attention.

But why did I yell at the driver, and why do I have so many tears ready to flow?

No matter how much work I do on myself, I am always surprised by things that got programmed-in, deep in the past. My sister got hit by a drunk driver when she was six and I four. That is what came back: the grief built-in from before.

On the surface I yelled because I could think that if we hadn’t gone for a walk, the woman might have been left in the ditch to die. What a mess that would have been. The suffering could last for years. But underneath, I yelled and cried because my sister’s life was changed for ever, in an instant, and I have never fully been able to process my four year old reaction.

So now we pray for and worry about our friend. I think about how sad it will be for her when she wakes up to the news that her boon companion, her dog, has died.

‘Sorry to bug you again Arnie, but I couldn’t help but think of you when I read this, food for thought-’

“All religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, as a stage for our spiritual quests. In contrast, science tells us that we are incidental, accidental.

Far from being the raison d’être of the universe, we appeared through sheer happenstance, and we could vanish in the same way. This is not a comforting viewpoint, but science, unlike religion, seeks truth regardless of how it makes us feel.

Buddhism raises radical questions about our inner and outer reality, but it is finally not radical enough to accommodate science’s disturbing perspective. The remaining question is whether any form of spirituality can.”

Which he extracted from here.

If you follow my blog, then you might anticipate my answer:

“Hi Mr Wawa,
No, a simple spirituality or religiosity cannot accommodate reality because it is not based on any observed reality (and that is all we really have to work with) but is most often opposed to it: deny the earth and gain heaven. But we do not have to engage Buddhism in a religious mode; I think Buddhism serves better as a social/psychological science because it gives a method that allows us to reprogram our minds to escape suffering. The Buddha’s original statements (the four noble truths and the eight fold path: the method) are completely compatible with quantum physics, and in some ways can be thought of as anticipating it (emptiness, illusion of things, and the nature of the void). And so, while I generally agree with most of the statement you provided (above), the first sentence of the last paragraph seems wrong. Buddhism is scientific because it is a system for looking at reality and recognizing what is directly in front of us. Albeit, Buddhism is a science directed towards social and personal problems and not one that studies subatomic particles. In my experience, Buddha’s method steps in after the psychotherapy.

It cannot be denied that many people do make the Buddha into a saint or a god and ignore his ideas in because they need either a metaphysical father figure, who will solve all their problems, or an external source of the validation they cannot give to themselves. At its best, Buddhism, as a religion, does work for many people because it directs ones focus on the awareness of moment by moment reality. But even if people use Buddhism as a religion, it does not negate the Buddha’s scientific approach.

For me, Buddhism as spirituality is unnecessary. On the other hand, science is only useful once we have answered the philosophical questions lumped under the rubric Ethics. With no ethics scientific pursuit can bring us to unlimited destruction. Buddhism is focused on alleviating the suffering of oneself and of others. The big ethical questions are answered in Buddhism-as-a-science in a way not unlike entanglement in quantum mechanics, in that we are all entangled with each other and would do well to act accordingly.

As for Buddhism not being radical. And if your purpose is wanting to understand yourself and your place in the universe, Buddhism as an experimental science is a pretty radical idea.

And that is my Zen blog for the week last.

In an email exchange M_ said she was surprised she wasn’t disappointed by the teacher’s no-show.

I loved the irony of the situation: no teacher to talk about what to do when one doesn’t have a teacher.

And then just the other day I found a modern-day, technocratic solution to the problem at issue. Please note that I do not recommend the product, I didn’t pay $2.49 for it (nor will I), nor am I getting paid anything by the company to do any advertizing. But I do like the irony of it (I guess this is my day for ironies): plugging ear buds into your head and listening to Buddhist inspirationals so you can ignore what ever reality is directly in front of your eyes.

Here is the link to the Buddhify app.

But what if Buddha had been alive today; would he want to form a religion? Looking at what he said ~2600 years ago, I would say that what he brought to the world was essentially a scientific theory, not a religion. Science is a neutral device that lets us look at things analytically. Scientists think up theories, and then they develop methodologies to test the theories. After a theory is proven useful, then a technology is developed to exploit the knowledge that was revealed in the scientific experiment.

Buddhism’s major focus is the eradication of suffering; Buddhism as a science is the idea that there is a systematic way of doing the same. Many people react negatively to the idea that Buddhism could be approached scientifically. And there are two major difficulties in pursuing Buddhism as science: 1) it is hard to be aware of ones moment to moment suffering, and of ones moment to moment, suffer-inducing thoughts; 2) we are fragile beasts that suffer fear of extinction, and as our minds are naturally wired in such a way that we identify ourselves with—we believe ourselves to be—our suffering, we naturally fear to give it up: without our suffering, who would we be?

The first of Buddha’s four major scientific statements is that all is suffering. This statement is translated in various ways, but I think that the simple translation, ‘suffering exits’ is perfectly good to work with. This is a scientific statement because it is a simple observation. Buddha’s second main statement posits that suffering is caused by attachment to desires. This is a hypothesis which can be tested by experimentation: a simple survey could be devised by social scientists to check on the nature of any particular example of suffering (as opposed to pain), and this survey could help in determining the cause of that suffering. In my own experience, I have found that every instance of my suffering (as opposed to pain) was caused by attachment to some desire I had. The self analysis was hard and took a lot of work. And I am still being surprised by the up-welling of suffering.

Buddha’s third statement concluded that suffering can be alleviated by removing attachments to desires. Having made this scientific conclusion, Buddha then described a course of action, a technology that if followed would bring an end to ones suffering. This technology is found in the Eight Fold Path.

In science if you repeat an traditional experiment you get the expected result. If you use a developed technology, you get the expected result, as long as the machine is not broken. We are the machine, our brains are the software that makes the machine perform wonderfully—or makes it suffer.

But the Eight Fold Path is not merely a technology that gives a recipe for action, it also reveals the major causes of suffering. Where Buddha prescribes Right Thinking, he can be read to mean that incorrect thinking is the cause of one type of suffering. This holds true for all Eight elements.

If Buddhism is a religion then the Eight Fold Path is something to aspire to, attainable only through hard work, allusive insight, and the help of innumerable friends. One is not expected to succeed, one only hopes to succeed.

If Buddhism is a science, then Buddhism is a machine, like a car, that should diligently take one to the destination: the destination is a state of non-attachment and non-suffering. The technology is laid out in the Eight Fold Path. It is as simple as this: if one is thinking bad thoughts about another person, thoughts that if they became manifest would cause that person suffering, then one would do well to think something completely different, something that is positive, that would cause no one suffering. Go play the piano, take a walk. This process, of becoming aware of ones thoughts and then changing their nature by abandoning them and doing something else, will rewire ones brain, recalibrate ones machine into a more and more enlightened state. It is something that one can do safely at home alone.

Luckily, the religion of Buddhism has brought us one extremely well-honed and useful scientific exercise that can help us pay attention to, and to become aware of our moment to moment attachments and desires, and thereby point to the thoughts that give rise to our suffering. This honourable practice is meditation. The scientific companion to the cultivation of awareness through meditation is that when a suffering-causing thought or pattern is identified, then one can take the technology of the Eight Fold Path, think and act in a different way than one usually does, and thereby rewire our beings. All we have to do is have faith in the machine and use it.

It’s as easy as learning to be a software wizard on the computer. Re-hack your brain. One day I might complete the job on my own head.

What exactly is pain and what is its relationship to suffering? The other day I heard an advertizement/plea by a cancer research charity. The spokeswoman was speaking about someone who had a severe form of cancer. What she said was, “He suffered the…cancer.”

Odd how English allows one to say things in different ways. Notice that pain is a noun and suffer is a verb. And yet we confuse the two and let them stand in for each other. We say, she suffered a broken arm, rather than, she felt the pain of a broken arm.

In this online dictionary, here, ‘suffer’ is defined as covering everything from pain to loss, from distress to punishment. It also means to appear at a disadvantage. Did the cancer research spokeswoman mean he was a a disadvantage because of the cancer? He undoubtedly was at a disadvantage. But ‘disadvantage’ does not carry the emotional freight of the word ‘suffering’.

The roots of the word ‘suffer’ comes from Latin: “Latin sufferre : … to carry.” She suffered the pain: she carried the pain. At what point did the word start to mean to feel pain?

I like to think that the two concepts should remain separate. Pain is a mental/physical object, and suffering is our reaction to it. I want to define ‘suffering’ as ‘carrying the idea of the pain beyond usefulness’.

The zen story about the two monks going on a journey together: They come across a woman who is having a hard time crossing a swollen stream. One monk picks her up and carries her across. Some while later, the second monk upbraids the first because they have taken vows to avoid women. The first monk replies, “I carried her across the stream. You are still carrying her.”

Buddha said that suffering exists, that it is caused by the attachment to desires. In respect to pain, is it not our desire to be completely free of it? And yet, the reality is that pain happens. You can’t avoid it. But what is pain? If you stick your hand into a candle flame, you get pain. This pain serves a function. It is a signal telling you to take your hand out of the fire. Sometimes, of course, pain can be so persistent there is no way to pull the figurative hand out of the flame. Is the result necessarily suffering?

Buddha said that suffering is caused by attachment. As pain is not caused by attachment, it would be inconsistent for Buddha to say that pain is suffering. Suffering is caused by attachment. Suffering is caused by carrying the import of the event in one’s mind. The second monk in the story above was in no pain, but he was suffering all during his journey because he could not let the event alone. He kept rolling it around in his mind. He kept worrying about the significance of it, about the right and wrong of it. Was he envious that the first monk got to carry the woman and he didn’t? Or, how come the first monk transgressed and didn’t get punished? Or,…. Endless strings of monkey mind.

What is the significance of pain? It is a mere signal. How can it have significance beyond being simply a signal that something is going wrong, and we should do something about it if we can? What if we can’t do anything? Are we attached to the idea that we should be so powerful that we always had the ability to cure each instance of pain, whether it be our own or another’s? Each one of us, in suffering, gives the pain signal, the phenomena of it, extra import. It is when we do this, when we think that life is not fair to cause us so much pain, that we suffer. Pain is unavoidable. Suffering, in the sense with which I am applying it, is (however unconsciously) self-afflicted.

I do a pretty good job of pretending that this sciatica I have shooting down my leg in electric bolts is merely pain. My struggle is in trying not to think that the universe is being unfair to me in giving me this pain. My struggle is to not complain to myself or others. When the pain becomes distracting, I take codeine. I would probably do well if I did more yoga.

What would a life of pain be like if we could see pain merely as pain, as just a sensation, with no significance beyond its message? What would our lives be like if we gave up our attachment to the strange notion that we should live a life that is pain free, that we should live forever, that we should be strong enough to cure all the world’s ills?

2 – The banks, big biz, and the government, or at least the right wing parts of them, have yelled up and down that government should be run like businesses: lean and mean. They are right in a way. Government could be run like a business. But not the kind usually meant by the right wing. Let me explain: have you ever wondered why the biz/bank class want to limit the size of government? It’s because government can provide services at a very competitive rate. Governments compete with businesses. Like SAM of walmart fame is supposed to have said, destroy the competition.

Government is ideally a co-operative where the members (the citizens) pay a fee (based on a sliding schedule – taxes) and receive services in return. Because the co-op has so many members (the total population), economies of scale should make the government supply services better and cheaper than any smaller business – excepting of course that there is a lot of corruption in government, and except for the fact that we keep voting in people who would rather the co-operative business of government fails.

3 – Another thing. Why does it always take so long for rotten things to change? It’s because things work for lots of people and they don’t want to give up the things that work for them, even if they can see that it is not working for the majority. I suspect that even when the system is not working for one, many think that if they only do this or that they can be filthy rich too. And then when things also get really bad for them (or you, or me) we finally protest. But are we protesting so we can get on the gravy train, or so that everyone gets an equal share? Regardless, at some point the power structure hires lots of people who like playing with guns, and they tend to use these types as a military buffer between themselves and the people. We hope that guns in the streets of America will not happen.

4 – But why all this on a Zen blog? Think of the world as one big sanga, one big place where everyone helped everyone who was suffering, where compassion for others was the norm, where anyone who is suffering was listened to, when anyone who was in pain or ill or hungry had their pain assuaged. Can a Government be a sanga? Only if the people who were elected were well-trained in compassion and practised it on an everyday basis. Government based on the four noble truths and the eightfold path? Or, embody the love of Christianity (while forgetting all that mean-spirited hateful advice from Leviticus).

5 – Which brings me to my last point. I feel very positive about all the liberation movements that are happening now around the world – for one very good reason. People in the Occupied encampments are spontaneously setting up self-help resources, and resources to help others. People are being compassionate. And if they, and we, can keep it up, then there is no reason to think that compassion as the basis for government will fail.

Conclusion – There is only one problem. The government/ banks are not going to set up a compassionate government. They are trying to perpetrate the same system that made them filthy rich and bankrupted everyone else. But why play their game? Step aside. Ignore them. Take your money out of the too big to fail banks and put it into people oriented credit unions and other small local financial institutions. Or make up a completely new system and work it.

Oh yes. I asked what has changed? People are starting to realize that they can make things work for them. That they are not powerless.

*****************
I’ve been getting a few comments questioning me about suffering and pain, and so that is what my next post will be about.

It was probably my early training through the Catholic church that ingrained into my mind the imperative to emulate Jesus Christ and save the world. Hard task. Impossible! And to this day I do not want to end up hanging on a cross. So if I had to save the world, then I had to find another method that wouldn’t be so fatal. Given that I grew up in a household where it was very hard to get an word in edgewise, I became a talker. Talk talk talk. As each one of us has hardwired in our brains the belief that we are the centre of the universe, and therefore perfect, it logically made sense that I was supposed to correct the world by talking.

The world refused to be corrected.

But then I had the wonderful revelation that my miniscule brain was too small to figure out what was wrong with the world, and far too small to know what do about it. Moreover, because of my miniature importance in respect to the size of the universe, I could not be held responsible for anything I might think was wrong. Suffering exists, yes. But I could not be responsible for all the suffering – unless I was directly causing it. And I wasn’t big enough to cause it all. What a relief. Things became much simpler for me. When someone presented with their suffering, I was no longer required (by myself) to tell them what to do or how to do it, nor (and this was the biggy), nor to solve their suffering even if they said it was my fault (I might talk about this another time: who is to blame for your suffering?). This one revelation improved my relationships with everyone I know. I stopped talking so much. I stopped telling people what to do (or at least I hope I have). And I started listening. Just being there. Being available. And this, kiddies is, all anyone can do. Luckily, it is the best thing to do. Yes, you can wash the leper’s feet. And that would be a great comfort to the unfortunate. But you can only help ease inevitable pain. You cannot stop that individual’s suffering. Only the person can stop their own suffering. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is self-inflicted.

But all was not yet rosy in my hen house. Witnessing other peoples suffering caused me to become exhausted. In other words, I was causing myself the suffering of exhaustion.

But that is what a sanga is for: To help rub off ones corners. In the sanga of my marriage, my partner said that my problem was probably that I still had the impulse to save the world: and with me that was always the impulse to give unwanted and ignorant instructions. At least, I thought, I am checking that impulse. Then, last week, I talked to my other zen crony, Sandra. She gave me a few good tricks to help me when I am falling into the trap of exhausting myself: Breath into your centre. Disappear your ego. Then, a day later, by talking with Peter, I firmed up a few ways to go about not exhausting myself. When I finally embody them, maybe I will be able to talk about them. Or maybe I will just sit and watch. Anyway, I’m now not falling into the trap of letting myself be exhausted by myself.

I only hope that I’m not transferring my need to talk talk talk to this blog.

And with that I put this blog on indefinite hiatus. It seems I have said all that I have to say on this particular topic. I still have a monkey mind. I still make sourdough bread that is too wet, but my partner likes it for sandwiches. And so it all goes on.
arnie

the picture above can be found on my web page at ajbell.ca