Why meditating is so difficult?

Dozens of techniques exist but, in its simplest and most beneficial version, the how of the meditation practice can be explained in just three sentences: (1) sit down still and quiet, (2) close your eyes, and (3) maintain awareness on your breath and your body sensations. Despite this simplicity, most people consider meditating a very complicated exercise. Why meditating is so difficult?

There appear to be good reasons to support this reluctance. Focusing attention is a patience demanding task since our brain seems to be better designed for turbulence and mental noises than for stillness and silence. A 2007 study by Michael Kane at the University of North Carolina suggests that, on average, during thirty percent of our alert schedule we are thinking about things different from what we are doing. And Jonathan Schooler of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver concluded in another 2007 investigation that even while reading, a concentration demanding activity, we digress between fifteen and twenty of the time.

Since we wander for such a high fraction of our awake day, scientists have decided to put their hands on the subject and, as in all research projects of cognitive sciences, computer imaging technology has become their main ally. Schooler and other group of researchers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have found that two specific brain regions belonging to different neuronal networks become active during mind wandering. The first one, located mainly on the frontal cortex, is known as the executive control system; the second one, more dispersed throughout the brain, is known as the default network. Activation of these networks is not steady or continuous and depends much on the wandering “magnitude”.

By associating the timed images to the mind states of participants as reported during the scanning procedure, the research team also established two levels in the intensity of distractions. In the first one the participants are partially conscious that they are actually wandering and hold the thread of the original task; in this case the predominant neuronal activity occurs in the executive control system network. In the second level, the participants are not even aware that they are distracted—Schooler refers to this second level as “zoning out”—and the neuronal activity is greater in the default network.

The distraction levels are easily recognized when practicing a common routine of Zen meditation. During this exercise, as an example, the meditator silently counts breathing cycles, from one to ten and repeatedly back to one. The counting is just a mental device to focus attention and keep distractions away; now and then the person looses track of the count. When meditators become aware of their mistake at the very moment it happens, they are still in the first distraction level. If, on the contrary, the miscounting lasts longer (for example, it reaches up to fourteen) the meditators, already in the second level, are zoning out.

“A lot of human daily life is autopilot,” Michael Kane says and, consequently, a certain degree of distraction is not only acceptable but it may even be necessary. Some psychologists maintain that the creativity flashes—the eureka moments—arise come from the default network when we are zoning out. However, if what permanently enter our head are resentments, obsessions, panics, hatred or other negative thoughts, it means we are in the territory of harmful disorders. It is here where meditation can be of much help; the Buddha said that meditation is the path toward a peaceful, undefiled state of mind.

Being so simple and useful, why do not more people meditate? Common answers, as it could be expected, have little to do with the brain physiology we just described. Accounts include “I cannot concentrate”, “I have too many problems in my head”, “my mind is elsewhere”, “I cannot remain still for so long” and so on. These excuses, well devised to “rationally” avoid the practice, are truly the best reasons why people should sit down, with their eyes closed in a passive attitude, and simply observe the flow of their breathing and of all the sensations that run through their body. Little by little, with the continuous and disciplined practice of this simple routine, their mind will appease and their unruly, disturbing thoughts will eventually settle down.

Gustavo Estrada

Author of HACIA EL BUDA DESDE EL OCCIDENTE

Mindfulness and mental disorders

Summary
After a pleasurable or a painful experience, the brain builds up conditioned neuronal circuits (saṅkhāras) for repeating or avoiding the experience. Such circuits are triggered when similar circumstances, real or imaginary, reappear. The recall of such circumstances automatically induces desires and cravings, on one side, or fears and rejections, on the other.
Depending upon the frequency or the intensity of the initial experiences, the normal inhibitory mechanisms reduce their strength and may fail to block the conditioned neuronal circuits that urgently demand repetition or avoidance. Compulsions and aversions arise then and, as things get worse, they get totally out of control.

During mindfulness meditation, a significant number of inhibitory neurons are turned on and off continuous and indiscriminately; they get “exercised” in the routine, so to speak, and eventually the lazy ones—those “guards” that had gone on strike—go back to work, which is to say, go back to their regular blocking duty. As either a drugless or a complementary therapy, mindfulness meditation is showing a very promising potential in the prevention and treatment of some mental disorders.

Mind exercisingDuring physical and mental exercising routines, such as dancing or ball juggling, the neuronal work in the brain is mostly excitatory—it triggers action on other neurons—while in the peripheral nervous system, in a symphonic coordination of muscular tensions and releases, it is both excitatory and inhibitory. In purely mental exercising such as chess or Sudoku, on the other hand, the neuronal activity, which is now centered in the brain, is mostly of an excitatory nature. How do we then exercise our brain inhibitory neurons, roughly one fifth of the one-hundred-billion (or 1011) total neurons? How do you train such important cells the work of which—stopping other neurons’ doings—goes very much unnoticed? The answer is through the practice of any form of meditation and, for increased effectiveness, through the practice of mindfulness meditation, a mental discipline which was developed by Siddhattha Gautama, the Buddha, twenty five centuries ago.

Mindfulness is the permanent awareness of life as it unfolds; mindfulness meditation—the quiet and still sitting while focusing attention on some object, means or mental device—is the practice of “directed” mindfulness to make it a permanent habit. Geographically and historically, breath observation is by far the most common meditation tool; as meditators gain experience, they progressively might focus attention on other objects or means such as their bodies, sensations or mind states, or the actual meditation experience.
Neurology Basics

Simply stated, excitatory neurons are nerve cells that send increasing activity signals to their neighbors; inhibitory neurons, reciprocally, are those which order their neighbors to reduce or stop activity. Nervous signals are carried by some chemicals, known as neurotransmitters, which travel through interneuronal junctions or synapses; each neuron is connected to its neighbors by an average of 7,000 synapses (so our brain contains some 7 x 1014 synapses).
Brain functions result from excitatory and inhibitory neurons being connected together in different ways to form neural circuits—ensembles of neurons that process specific kinds of information. When first acquired or experienced, every learned or developed functional task—a piece of knowledge, a skill, an image, a memory, an emotional state, a preference, a dislike—becomes a neural circuit.

Synapses within a neural circuit weaken (or strengthen) with the reduced (or increased) activity of the circuit’s function. Every time a task is repeated or re-experienced, the corresponding neural circuit is “re-run”, strengthening the associated connections in the repetition. Seldom used circuits weaken and the associated function is eventually forgotten. Medical science knows today that the underuse of the brain does decrease both length and quality of life.

Mindfulness meditation
The practice of mindfulness meditation is the “purposeful” stopping of as many common alert state functions as feasible. What happens to your neurons while you meditate? Though every meditator follows his or her personal routine, the steps below represent a typical sequence which, for the purpose of this note, contains enough information for the intended association between neuronal inhibition and mindfulness meditation. While beginners normally stay within the first four or five numerals of this progression, disciplined meditators regularly reach and experience the highest introspection levels. The sequence is as follows:
1. Just by sitting still, quiet, with eyes closed and in an isolated place, an important fraction of your excitatory neurons—the motors, the talkers, the observers, the listeners and, if you have not eaten anything during the previous hours, the digesters—go to rest. Thus far, except for the posture, meditating and sleeping are similar activities.
2. When you become aware of gross sensations—your clothes, the contact with your seat or the floor—the inhibitory neurons that ordinarily block such sensations are turned off (you perceive such sensations; sensations are on).
3. When you focus attention onto the flow of your breath, inhibitory neurons turn on to shut off distractions.
4. As distractions interfere, inhibitory neurons turn off to let distracting thoughts enter (involuntarily). When you notice you are distracted, you go back to Item 3 (inhibitory neurons on again.)
5. As, with practice and patience, you are able to maintain your awareness on your breath for longer and longer periods, subtle sensations appear in different parts of your body, which implies that inhibitory neurons, both at the central and peripheral systems, are turned off (sensations are “on”) wherever those sensations are perceived.
6. As you alternate attention between your breath and those subtle sensations throughout your body, you (a kind of) learn to turn off and on at will the inhibitory neurons that switch on and off these “subtle sensations.”
7. With continued and disciplined practice, you enter progressively deeper levels of joy, inner harmony, equanimity and pure consciousness (intense exaltation of mind and feelings.) At these stages, you always maintain awareness on your mind states and your actual meditation experience (going back to breath focusing whenever you get distracted).

What do you gain from the practice of mindfulness meditation? How do you benefit from the working out of inhibitory neurons, from continuously turning them on and off for a rather long period? The intuitive wisdom of the Buddha, who obviously knew nothing about neurons, answers these questions: With mindfulness meditation you develop the skill to be permanently mindful and reduce (and eventually eliminate) suffering (dukkha); the Buddha never spoke of mental disorders. How does this happen?

The role of inhibitory neurons is similar to that of building guards; when they are accurately and dutifully working (active, “on”), intruders do not cross the threshold (they are inactive, off), undesired people cannot enter and nothing seems to be happening. When guards do not show up to work, any person, intruders and disrupters included, can enter restricted premises. Similarly, when your inhibitory guards are off duty, intruding and disrupting thoughts—compulsive desires or intensive aversions—invade your mind.

Pleasure and pain
In our remote ancestors, pleasure and pain were survival mechanisms designed through natural selection. By generating the desiring emotions that call for the repetition of specific actions, the gratification of satisfying needs, both physiological and social, pleasure became a survival advantage for individuals and species. Similarly, the experience of pain led to the design of fear signals that set off automatic alarms when similar threatening dangers were encountered; the timely fight or flight conditioned response was instrumental for survival. Our desires and fears, therefore, are just simple natural reactions which our genetic code programs in our brain circuits; however, such responses are to be silenced by attentive inhibitory neuron once the demanding need or the threatening danger has been successfully managed.
Mental Disorders and Suffering

Unfortunately, reactions to demands and threats are sometimes mismanaged. If after the satisfaction of a particular need the neural patterns of desires are not shut off, the temporary wishes become permanent compulsions, addictions or obsessive demands. Similarly, if after the disappearance of a threat the neural patterns of fears are not shut off, the transitory worries become permanent aversions, panics or phobias. Minor cravings (the “controlled” daily drinking) and rejections (your “reasonable” hostility to someone “because you don’t have to like everybody”) are considered normal. The Buddha disagrees; according to him, the origin of suffering lies in these minor anomalies. It is only when the inhibitory mechanisms go wild and unruly that a variety of behavioral disorders arises and suffering becomes unbearable. Cognitive sciences are coming to the conclusion that many mental disorders, such as substance dependence, eating disorders, sexual addictions, obsessive compulsive disorders and post traumatic stress disorders, have roots in malfunctioning of inhibitory mechanisms.

Mindfulness meditation has already proven beneficial in dealing with such disarrays. As a therapy tool, it helps at both levels—the socially accepted and the psychologically unacceptable—but, as with any problem, prevention or early treatment is better than late correction. The Buddha properly addressed the elimination of the day-to-day suffering—the usual stress, the ordinary anxiety, the normal anguish of the common life—this is, the initial manifestation of the more complex problems. Mindfulness meditation, the exercise of large groups of inhibitory neurons which bring back inhibitory processes to order and harmony, was both the preventive and corrective prescription he recommended. What the Buddha knew intuitively since long time ago, cognitive sciences are learning the hard way today.

Mindfulness meditation and neuronal inhibition

Neurons are the cells of our nervous system which process and transmit electrochemical signals. Neuronal connections are either excitatory, when the nerve impulse increases the firing activity of the receiving cell, or inhibitory, the opposite, when the signal reduces the firing activity of the receiving cell. Mindfulness meditation is the workout of our inhibitory connections—the ones that stop us from doing certain things—to keep such connections in good “shape” or restore their capacity if it has deteriorated. Let me explain how this happens and what it is good for.

When people start a meditating session, they go through a wide variety of sensory and perceptual experiences, which originate from the continuous activation and deactivation of their inhibitory connections. As they enter deeper levels of introspection or concentration, they isolate themselves not only from external sensory signals (that is the easy part) but also from mind wandering. At those peak moments, million inhibitory connections turn on, block distracting thoughts and make the meditator undergo very special mental experiences which, in general, are difficult to describe. Still, as any other mental event, such experiences are pure neuronal phenomena and not, by any means, mystical calls.

Neuronal circuits are ensembles of neurons that process specific kinds of information. Excitatory routines prompt events; they are the neuronal circuits that keep data or instructions that are called in when they are needed. Inhibitory routines stop events; they are the blocking circuits that are supposed to restrain further action when the job is complete. The same way as excitatory routines might fade away, this is, they might get weakened and erased—the corresponding data or ability is then forgotten—inhibitory routines might also stop doing their blocking duty and the associated activity, which was supposed to be controlled, is actually overdone.
The purposeful repetition of an “excitatory” physical or mental task reinforces the associated neuronal program; this makes it progressively easier the repetition of the task. Though in a different manner, mindfulness meditation is, from the neuronal point of view, the purposeful repetition of thousands of passivity or stopping routines, this is to say, the workout of inhibitory circuits. Where do these workouts lead to? To the end of suffering, said the Buddha, twenty five centuries ago. But now cognitive sciences are finding now that mindfulness meditation is a very valuable tool to deal with some mental disorders.

Neurologists already knew that several mental disorders, both addictive and repulsive, stem from the malfunctioning of inhibitory mechanisms. The addictive type, such as substance dependence, sexual addiction and eating disorders, are related to pleasure habituation; the repulsive kind, such as phobias, panics, obsessive compulsive disorders or post traumatic stress disorders, are related to pain avoidance.

These disorders are disarrays of natural, normal processes. After pleasurable or painful experiences, the brain builds up automatic neuronal circuits for the conditioned repetition or avoidance of such experiences; the same circuits are triggered when similar circumstances reappear. Eating food is pleasing and stops hunger, therefore seeing or smelling food invites us to eat; touching hot things is painful, therefore avoiding blazing stoves or irons becomes second nature.

But the frequent repetition of an event or the high impact of a single episode might alter inhibitory mechanisms; they fail then to block the conditioned neuronal circuits that urgently demand repetition or avoidance. For instance, if we do many times a pleasing activity or the satisfying impression of one single action is too intense, we might get burning desires to duplicate the circumstances as often as possible, which we will keep doing if the blocking circuits deteriorate and so we become addicts. Or, on the other hand, a very strong negative event might affect the fear blocking signals so badly that phobias, panics or obsessive threats will become automatic in front of imaginary or harmless incidents. As things get worse, the simple thought of the conditioning events triggers cravings for repeating pleasure and dreads for avoiding pain. Either in the addictive or repulsive direction, the whole process becomes an unbearable treadmill. Excessive suffering, the Buddha would say.

When you meditate, you exercise—you force to work— an important fraction of your inhibitory circuits. By isolating physically, a huge number of sensory signals are turned off. When trying to focus your attention onto something (your breath, for instance), your mind switches control between wandering thoughts (involuntarily) and attention focusing (willingly); as this happens, millions of inhibitory neurons turn off and on alternatively. By regularly doing this kind of workout, your day-to-day mindfulness improves and so does your control of addictions and fears.

The rediscovery of this millennial wisdom is very promising; our brain receives so many signals and so much noise today that the pace of our lives does not seem to have a slow lane any more. All kind of mental disorders are on the rise. As the neuronal nature of the uncommon perceptions meditators undergo during meditation and the neuronal workings of the whole mindfulness experience are better understood both the acceptance and the potential of the technique in dealing with mental disorders will grow substantially.



Gustavo Estrada
Author of Hacia el Buda desde el occidente
http://pragmatic-buddha.com/

The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

The Abhidhamma Pitaka, the third, newest and longest of the three divisions of the Pali Canon, is the original source of the theory of Buddhism as a school of psychology; the Canon is universally acknowledged as the oldest and most reliable source of Buddhist Sacred texts. This makes timing one of the problems in the development of Buddhist psychology. On one hand, Buddhism precedes psychology by over two millennia; on the other, the Abhidhamma Pitaka is dated around two hundred years after the death of Siddhattha Gotama. So the Teachings of the Buddha were not proposed to be a school of psychology and obviously such evolution was not intended by the Buddha. (Last, least and just for fun, the first root of the word “psychology” comes for the Greek “psykhe," which means “soul”, an entity that Buddhism considers non existing). So Buddhist psychology is an inconclusive puzzle, which must be completed with pieces from other schools and made up by each scholar within his/her own specialization and frame of mind.

Jack Kornfield’s approach to the subject is described in THE WISE HEART. Here he explains in detail what he calls the twenty six principles of Buddhist psychology. I am not very happy with the result. Most items are indeed principles —comprehensive and fundamental rules— though some, as you could expect, are no more than basic Siddhattha Gotama’s Teachings. Examples: Don’t cling to self (#5), be mindful of your body (#8), your thoughts (#10) and your intention (#17), release grasping/be free from suffering (#16). and follow the middle way (#24). A few other, such as see inner nobility of human beings (#1) and recognize and transform unhealthy patterns of our personality (#12), are just nice recommendations that you find in almost any personal growth writing. A couple of principles, shift attention from experience to spacious consciousness (#3) and mindful attention to any experience is liberating (#7), seems to contradict each other.

Buddhist psychotherapy further complicates the whole subject from the strict doctrinal point of view. Whoever agrees to work with a therapist is after some kind of change, namely wanting to be somebody different from what he/she currently is. I see problems here. The desire to change is the THIRST, the second noble truth, the root of suffering, “the craving that makes for further becoming” (Thanissaro Bhikkhu), “the craving that produces renewal” (Ñanamoli Thera), or “the craving which leads to renewed existence” (Peter Harvey). Most therapy cases, as described extensively and illustratively by Jack Kornfield, portray situations that obviously aim at modifying mental health conditions. There the Buddha’s Teachings and the Buddhist meditation techniques have proved to be excellent tools to help patients. But they were just some of the tools that are to be used in connection with other techniques of, so to speak, conventional western therapies. You can hardly talk of such a thing as a purely / exclusively Buddhist approach to psychotherapy.

The supporting material of each principle is excellent thanks to the long experience of the author both as a psychologist and a therapist, on one hand, and as the Buddhist practitioner and scholar of many years, on the other. Most quotations prove very helpful to the author purpose, particularly those by Ajanh Chah. The Buddha’s quotations are also most appropriate still, as the meticulous picky reader who often checks alternative translations, I would love to see the suttas or discourses where they are taken from. This is particularly important to take into account when excerpts from the Mahayana texts are quoted since they are farther away from what might actually have been the Buddha’s words.

Jack Kornfield makes THE WISE HEART a very entertaining good-title-to-read book. But it does not match the expectancy created by the subtitle.

Pragmatic Buddha: Non-religious Buddhism

At that time "the world was so recent that many things still lacked names, and in order to mention them it was necessary to point". With this imaginative metaphor Gabriel Garcia Marquez describes the immemorial remoteness of his One Hundred Years of Solitude’s early days. In the same way, the fingers of modern scholars are now pointing to the Buddha’s pragmatism, twenty four centuries before such word entered languages after being coined by North American philosopher Charles S. Peirce.
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Two paragraphs, appearing in many Buddha’s discourses, corroborate this assertion. The first one, a summary of his Teachings in itself, is Siddhattha Gotama’s recurrent repetition of his four noble truths: “I only explain the reality of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path to the cessation of suffering". The second one are the Buddha’s answers to a disciple who was requesting clarity on a number of uncertain questions related to the nature of the cosmos, the immanence of the soul and the existence of the buddhas after their death. Says Siddhattha Gotama: “In the discussion of any hypothesis about supernatural matters—be them the eternity or finitude of the universe, the existence or nonexistence of the soul, its immortality or its disappearance, rebirth or reincarnation—the affirmation or negation of any position about such issues is only a bunch of opinions, a desert of opinions, a manipulation of opinions that in no way leads to the cessation of suffering.” In other words, the only notions of importance for the Buddha are those few things that lead to the end of suffering; any action or discussion that does not help in that respect is merely a complete waste of time.
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Pragmatic is the person who uses a practical approach to problems and matters of everyday life; for such person, the truth is whatever works and produces results. Rules and behaviors must go together and have beneficial consequences; therefore, theory and practice should not belong to different domains. (Pragmatic comes from Greek pragmatikos meaning “versed in matters of business"). The Teachings of Buddha are pragmatic, says Anglo-German Buddhist scholar Edward Conze, because they avoid speculation and aim only to the habits and practices that lead to the cessation of suffering. The four noble truths are the only the only necessary truths. The end of suffering results from knowing them, recognizing their imperative need and actually experiencing them. Knowledge needs to be lived if it is to become wisdom.
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The pragmatic vision of the Buddha is most appropriate for the modern individuals interested in putting an end to their anguish—the Henry D. Thoreau’s “mass of men who live lives of quiet desperation”—by some practical approach that excludes abstract concepts and unexplainable dogmas. When an approach works for someone, it will definitely be the “truth” for him or her.

The Selfish Gene

I read this book for the first time in the 80’s and found it excellent; it is quite well placed in number nine of the Discover Magazine 2006 list of Greatest Science Books of All Time. When Dawkins first published his book back in 1976, he wrote that, though the theory of evolution was generally recognized and barely doubted then, “the full implications of Darwin’s revolution had yet to be realized.” I feel positively that those implications are now absolutely realized and only religious fanatics dare to question natural selection. This quantum leap in universal understanding is due in a large proportion to The Selfish Gene. Dawkins not only explained Darwin’s selection but also expanded it backward in time with sound clarifications to the emergence of the first self-replicable molecule and forward to the recent time through imaginative elucidations about the replication of cultural characteristics through what he calls “memes.” Memes, the social equivalences of biological genes, is a word the author created and is nowadays of common use in social sciences.
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When I became seriously interested in the Teaching of Siddhattha Gotama, the Buddha, there were a few notions in common between the Teachings of the ancient sage and the assertions of the modern biologist—the inexistence of metaphysical essences in living beings, the purposelessness of life as a phenomenon, the “undivine” nature of morality—that I decided to read once more The Selfish Gene. In a material universe, how or where does Buddhist reincarnation fit with Dawkins’s biology? Here I have my own interpretation (which the bright English scientist most probably does not share). Each gen or, better said, the design in it coded, is eternal. Says Dawkins: “Each gen leaps from body to body in its own way and for its own ends, abandoning a succession of mortal bodies before they sink in senility and death. The genes are the immortals, or rather, they are defined as genetic entities that come close to deserving the title”. So, the much talked reincarnation or rebirth of some Eastern religions could be well assimilated to body-to-body transmission of genetic information, instead of some kind of mysterious energy or metaphysical essence. Enough of that! My biological interpretation of Buddhist reincarnation does not add a bit to the wonder of this book. The Selfish Gene is just superb.

The Buddha: Agnostic or Pragmatic?

At that time "the world was so recent that many things still lacked names, and in order to mention them it was necessary to point". With this imaginative metaphor Gabriel Garcia Marquez describes the immemorial remoteness of his One Hundred Years of Solitude’s early days. In the same way, the fingers of modern scholars are now pointing to the Buddha’s agnosticism and pragmatism, twenty four centuries before such words entered languages after being coined by English biologist Thomas H. Huxley and North American philosopher Charles S. Peirce respectively.

Two paragraphs, appearing in many Buddha’s discourses, corroborate this assertion. The first one, a summary of his Teachings in itself, is Siddhattha Gotama’s recurrent repetition of his four noble truths: “I only explain the reality of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path to the cessation of suffering". The second one are the Buddha’s answers to a disciple who was requesting clarity on a number of uncertain questions related to the nature of the cosmos, the immanence of the soul and the existence of the buddhas after their death. Says Siddhattha Gotama: “In the discussion of any hypothesis about supernatural matters—be them the eternity or finitude of the universe, the existence or nonexistence of the soul, its immortality or its disappearance, rebirth or reincarnation—the affirmation or negation of any position about such issues is only a bunch of opinions, a desert of opinions, a manipulation of opinions that in no way leads to the cessation of suffering.” In other words, the only notions of importance for the Buddha are those few things that lead to the end of suffering; any action or discussion that does not help in that respect is merely a complete waste of time.

Before associating them with Buddhism, we need to describe the two terms that we are talking about. Agnostic is one who recognizes the human inability to reach definitive conclusions on certain matters, particularly those of a theological or metaphysical nature, the complexity of which exceeds the capacity of human reason. Instead of exhausting wits to support a point of view in one or another direction, the agnostic neither denies nor asserts; he simply does not expend brain power on issues which are logically or physically impossible to refute or verify. Since the ultimate reality is incomprehensible, the agnostic merely says: “I do not know." Over the last fifty years, a century after Huxley’s time, dozens of thinkers, generously supported by modern research, are beginning to share the "cautious ignorance" of the English biologist.

Looking inside, into our inner world, many of today’s neurologists and anthropologists consider that the brain, as it has evolved through ages until reaching the prodigy of the Homo sapiens’ mind, has developed capacities which are exclusively for the survival of its owner and not for the understanding of the laws of the cosmos. Looking outside, both to distant galaxies and neighboring subatomic particles, modern physicists like 1979-Nobel-Prize winner Steven Weinberg, think that the reality of matter and energy is exceedingly mysterious, even for the brightest and most experienced scientists, a heavy weight statement coming from such a top name.

The assembly of the universe did not happen with the intention of being understood by the human mind, so natural sciences, which almost always lean toward the materialist interpretation, end up hitting against a wall that eventually takes the academic world to a prudent agnostic standpoint. The reasoning behind such skeptic position is quite simple: There exists an extremely wide disparity between the problem presented by physics and the tool provided by neurology. You cannot paint a red circle with a blue marker. If the problem is the interpretation of the cosmos (painting a red circle) and the brain (the blue marker) is the only tool available, the problem will remain unsolved. The Buddha, according to Scottish author Stephen Batchelor, a former Buddhist monk, is agnostic; Siddhattha Gotama, when confronted with complex unsolvable issues, either remains silent or abstains from formulating hypothesis. (Needless to say, the Buddha never speaks of physics or sciences and this paragraph does not imply that scientific research is to be stopped.) Other Buddhist scholars disagree with Batchelor’s statement—indeed the Buddha never says “I do not know”. But Siddhattha Gotama does advise his rational audiences to be agnostic.

Pragmatic, the other term under consideration, is the person who uses a practical approach to problems and matters of everyday life; for such person, the truth is whatever works and produces results. Rules and behaviors must go together and have beneficial consequences; therefore, theory and practice should not belong to different domains. (Pragmatic comes from Greek pragmatikos meaning “versed in matters of business"). The Teachings of Buddha are pragmatic, says Anglo-German Buddhist scholar Edward Conze, because they avoid speculation and aim only to the habits and practices that lead to the cessation of suffering. The four noble truths are the only “absolute” truths, the only necessary truths. The end of suffering results from knowing them, recognizing their imperative need and actually experiencing them. Knowledge needs to be lived if it is to become wisdom. Those familiar with the Buddha’s Teachings, even at elementary level, well know the intimate unity of the noble truths (the theory) and the eightfold path (the practice): The fourth noble truth is the path and the first practice of the path is the intimate understanding of the four truths.

Who might have interest in this dichotomy? The agnostic Buddha (or his agnostic recommendation) interests the rational minds, those individuals ruled by logic and analysis, who feel uncomfortable with both the faith of the blind believers and the limitations of the human mind. The pragmatic Buddha, on the other hand, is for a much larger audience, the Henry D. Thoreau’s “mass of men who live lives of quiet desperation” willing to put an end to their anguish by some practical approach that excludes abstract concepts and unexplainable dogmas. When an approach works for someone, it will definitely be true for him or her.

In terms of “length” or coverage, the Teachings of the Buddha are more pragmatic than agnostic. The full eightfold path is pragmatic (should produce useful results) while agnosticism is displayed only in the first noble practice, the “right view”, which Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn precisely and agnostically defines as “the absence of views”.

Given the above considerations, agnostic and pragmatic are both adequate qualifiers for Siddhattha Gotama’s thought; they are not a one-or-the-other dilemma. In spite of being myself agnostic, what I personally likes best about the Teachings is their pragmatism. But evidently the Buddha would probably disagree with any attempt, like this one, which seeks to catalogue his message within any dictionary of philosophy. "Please, friends”, I guess he would say, “this discussion in no way contributes to the elimination of suffering."

Life, Consciousness and Self

Life and consciousness are magic, white magic I should say. We'll never understand the charms and spells behind such phenomena. But we should just appreciate the show without any concern about who the magician is or how the tricks work. The SELF —the EGO— is the supreme illusion that feels so real it clouds our sight and distorts whatever is out there. According to the sages, when the EGO fades away, clouds disappear and we perceive the world very differently. This new way of seeing is intuitive knowledge, —direct knowledge, the third kind of knowledge Spinoza described. Supposedly the new reality so discovered is the TRUE REALITY. Call it Heaven, God, Pure Consciousness, the Eternal… but we cannot see IT through the eyes of common reason.

http://pragmatic-buddha.com/Book.aspx

Essence of Buddhism

Starting point: Characteristics of existence
Every school of thought, be it a philosophical system, a religious creed or a scientific hypothesis, is almost always based on a few assumptions or definitions on which the theoretical framework is built. The clearer the initial propositions (clear in what they mean, not in the concurrence with or acceptance of what they imply) the easier it is to build on them the body of a doctrine.
Communism begins in the administration of the material resources of a society by a communitarian organization. Christianity begins in “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen…” Classical mechanics initiates with the three laws of motion of Isaac Newton —inertia, acceleration, reciprocal action. Similarly the starting point of Buddhism lies in the three following statements, known as the three characteristics of existence (or of phenomena) and identified respectively as impermanence, (propensity to) suffering and impersonality:

1- Everything changes permanently.
2- Suffering exists and human existence is prone to it.
3- Living beings, in general, and human beings, in particular, lack (or are not connected with) an enduring essence (there are no metaphysical entities associated with living organisms).

These three characteristics go beyond human existence and apply, in the broadest sense, to all the phenomena of the universe. However, the phenomenon of human life and, in particular, the mental phenomenon constitutes the primary interest of the Teachings of the Buddha (and of this site). So, if this is clear to you, even if you disagree with its meaning, you are ready to study Buddhism.

The four noble truths
The presentation of the basic Teachings of the Buddha needs very few pages. Its essence resides in four brief statements which are based on the three characteristics of phenomena and that are known as the four noble truths. Noble is an adjective of both Pali and Sanskrit (the two most important sacred language of Buddhism) that is used to refer to the four truths. As we will see soon, noble is also used in reference to the path of the eight “noble” practices).
Siddhattha presents for the first time his famous noble statements in the discourse known as Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth. Gotama directs this speech to five of his former companions of asceticism in the woods of Maghada, a few weeks after his inner awakening. The speech was delivered at the Deer Park in Sarnath, near Benares, the millenary Indian city located on the banks of the Ganges river.

The depth, simplicity and directness of its content grant this discourse within the Buddhist a level of significance similar to that of the Sermon on the Mount within Christianity. If you avail yourself of only an hour to study the Buddhist doctrine, whatever you find in any encyclopedia and the text of Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth is what you should read. It will leave many opened questions, but it will also provide a few interesting answers. Furthermore, you will understand why for the elimination of suffering, the single most important objective of the Buddha’s Teachings, there is no need to believe—neither not to believe—in any metaphysical entity or being.

The four noble truths can be summarized in the following sentences:

1. There is suffering: Human life is by its very nature prone to such suffering.
2. There is a cause for suffering: suffering originates in the intense desire for things that we do not have and the uncontrolled aversion to things that surround us or that we do have.
3. There is a cessation of suffering: If you uproot intense desires and aversions, suffering disappears.
4. There is a path leading to the cessation of suffering: There are specific practices or factors —the eightfold noble practices or factors—that eradicate intense desires and uncontrolled aversions. When this path is walked, suffering disappears.

The noble path or middle way
The four noble truths are the theory behind the Teachings of Buddha; the elaboration of the fourth truth is the practice. The Perfect called noble path or middle way his prescription for the cessation of suffering. According to the Buddhist tradition, the path represents the balance between the two lifestyles of Gotama during the years leading up to his inner awakening. At one end are the initial twenty-nine years of his pleasurable and luxurious life as crown prince, and at the other the extremely rigorous and heartrending six years of his ascetic period. Siddhattha learns from his own direct experience that neither of these two extremes is appropriate. Says Siddhattha says in his discourse on Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth:

"There are two extremes that cannot be pursued by someone who is in the quest of perfection. The first gives loose rein to the pleasures of the senses and is vulgar, harmful and dissolute. The second is devoted to the severe austerity and it is vulgar, harmful and painful. There is a middle way that I have glimpsed and breaks away from these two extremes, generates knowledge and leads to equanimity, mental emancipation and inner awakening. And what is this middle path? It is the noble path of the eight practices or factors: right opinion, right thought, right speech, right action, a right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right ecstasy."

Later in the same speech, the Sage of Sakya repeats the list of the eight practices when he describes the fourth and last of the noble truths: "And this is the truth of the noble path to the cessation of suffering: the cessation of suffering is the constant march of the noble way of the eight practices." Like many terms of the Pali language, the word “right” presents some complications. As the common adjective of all the eight factors, "right" does not refer to an arbitrary standard or a moral judgement imposed by someone—it is not the opposite of wrong or dishonest. The modifier of the eight noble practices is actually an adverb in Pali (not an adjective) that means "properly, the way it should be." This is the sense with which the word “right” is to be interpreted.

Buddhism and Buddhist

What is Buddhism?
Buddhism is a religion and a philosophy proposed by Siddhattha Gotama in northeastern India in the sixth century B.C. As it gradually extended through central and eastern Asia, Buddhism became a major religion and played, right from its very beginning, a significant role in the spiritual, social and cultural life of that continent. For the strong emphasis it places in introspection and mind states, numerous scholars consider Buddhism a kind of psychology system rather than (or in addition to) a religious creed or a school of philosophy.

Who is Siddhattha Gotama?
Siddhattha Gotama (563 B.C.-483 B.C.) is the Buddha, the thinker who developed a doctrine, both theory and practice, which leads to the cessation of suffering, and upon which all branches of religious Buddhism are built. Tradition assigns a variety of names to Siddhattha Gotama, being the most common the Awakened one ("awakened" is the best translation for the word “buddha”, more precisely “mentally awakened”), the Perfect one, the Sage of Sakya (the Sage of the Sakyan clan), the Blessed One and, of course, the Buddha.

Suffering
Emotional suffering (or just “suffering” as explained below) is one of the most important notions in Buddhism. Suffering, according to the Buddha, is the full range of human dissatisfactions ranging from the simple everyday imaginary worries through the unexpected mood slumps and melancholies to the most intense and harmful obsessive anguishes, phobias and depressions. I reserve the word "suffering" (with no adjective as I use it most of the times) to refer to mental disharmonies or “emotional suffering”; I use the word “pain” to imply manifest ache or “physical suffering.” The latter is most often inevitable; the former is always optional. Suffering is what the Buddha sets out to eliminate. The original body of doctrine that Siddhattha Gotama builds is commonly known as the Teachings. The written Teachings (the Teachings as appear in the sacred texts) consist of a set of lessons—a few doctrinal concepts, some practical instructions, a lot of examples, many parables—which establish the application of the Natural Order to human conduct. The practical Teachings are a set of instructions to eliminate suffering; the theoretical Teachings are the doctrinal concepts behind such instructions. Both practice and theory are plain common sense. The practice refers to the day-to-day way of living for not to suffer; the theory is the recollection of the lessons of experience with which the Teachings are related.

In spite of the precision of the Buddha’s proposal (crystal clear: the elimination of suffering), the practical directness of his Teachings, and the firmness and intelligibility of his doctrine, common people generally find Buddhism obscure and difficult. Why is this so? This happens because religious Buddhism is surrounded by misunderstandings, distortions and a huge aureole of myth and mystery. The reasons behind all this puzzlement are multiple. The body of the whole philosophical doctrine, which has exploded notwithstanding the Teachings’ simplicity, is abstract; the variety of schools, high in number and confusing in minutiae; the multicultural influences, excessive; the rituals of some sects, weird; the size of the sacred literature, gigantic; the translation of the original sacred text, complicated.

At the other end, within the large number of texts attributed to the Buddha (but the authorship of which, in its vast majority, belongs to his followers, some of whom lived centuries after him), there exists a small core of simple notions which, with a high degree of certainty, was indeed structured and preached by the Sage of Sakya. This core is what I call, as many authors do, the basic Teachings. (When I simply say “Teachings” I mean the basic Teachings, the same way as I when I say “suffering” I mean emotional suffering). Rather than penetrating the arduous doctrine of Buddhism (which is well beyond my capacity), the purpose of these writings is to demystify and "de-myth-ify” the Teachings of the Buddha, presenting them with all its beauty and in all its simplicity.

This said, there is one key factor that needs to be established right away: At the heart of this matter and a key factor in what I want to communicate, it is the recognition that the Teachings are remarkably and fundamentally practical; they are about doing (or restraining from doing), not about believing; they are in themselves evident truths, not dogmas of faith; they are to observe and feel, not to speculate and wander.

The semantics of several languages endorses the practical character of the original Teachings. From the perspective I want to explain the Buddha’s message, the word "Buddhism" should not really exist and the word "buddhist" should have a different meaning. Buddhism is indeed a religion; the Teachings of the Buddha are not. As a way of living, the Teachings have nothing in common with the dogmatic systems that entail beliefs or affiliations.

While very different in their purpose, the Teachings are more similar in format and application to personal productivity manuals (such as The seven habits of highly effective people) than to a religious doctrine. In spite of the success of Stephen Covey's proposal, the developer of The seven habits, I have never heard the expression "coveyism.”

Buddhism and Buddhist
The word “Buddhism” is an invention of Western scholars, states Stephen Batchelor, Scottish writer, translator of Tibetan texts, Buddhist monk for ten years and today a lecturer of a non-affiliated Buddhism. The word “Buddhist” does not exist in Tibetan language, says Lama Surya Das, American lecturer, an active Buddhist monk, also a writer and translator of sacred books. According to him, Tibetans use a word roughly equivalent to “insider” (defined as somebody who looks inside for existential meaning), when they want to refer to what we westerners call “buddhist.” In this context, “insider” has no connotation whatsoever of pursuit of beliefs or affiliation to sects. ,

Let me move now to English, a language in which, fortunately, I do not need to rely on Eastern linguists. The suffix 'ist" is added to words to form nouns of two kinds. The first one relates to people who hold inclinations, partisanships or biases (altruist, socialist, sexist). The second one refers to those who do something (a machinist who operates a machine, a botanist who studies botany, a pianist who plays piano). Nouns in the first group represent qualitative attitudes or beliefs that cannot be easily measured or modified. Nouns in the second group involve activities the performance of which can be improved with the continued practice. With the repetition of the activity, a machinist is more qualified, a botanist is more competent, and a pianist is more skilled.

Grammar in hand, the noun "buddhist" belongs to the second group, with machinist, botanist and pianist, since it has no similarity to altruist, socialist or sexist. Buddhist is, or should be, the person who practices the Teachings of the Buddha. Strictly speaking, Buddhist “practitioner” is redundant while buddhist “theoretician” (devout, faithful, adept…) is meaningless. Acknowledging the term "practitioner" is not a precise word for the meaning of performer or doer, I use it to refer to the person who puts the Teachings into action. (Ignoring their connotation of “adherent” or “believer” and in the absence of better words, I also use words such as disciple, apprentice or student—think of the learning of a craft skill—to refer to people who practices the Teachings).

Abiding once more by semantics, if there is no machinism, botanism or pianism, there should neither be “Buddhism.” ''Nobody listened to the Buddha, that is why there is Buddhism" said J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986), the eminent twentieth century Hindu philosopher. And the same way as excellent machinists, botanists and pianists do not require creeds to excel in their tasks, genuine Buddhists do not need metaphysical beliefs or strange ritualistic feats to be accomplished practitioners; they only must practice a “something.” If they practice seldom, results are poor. If they practice a lot, progress is remarkable. If they practice permanently, they become virtuosos. And similarly, as operating instructions, botanical sciences and musical theory are crucial for machinists, botanists and pianists, also respectively, the Teachings, those aspects of nature and experience that relate to the instructions to live, are the only important matter for the Buddhist practitioner.

Needless to say, the above interpretations are presented exclusively to insist and emphasize the practicability—the “doability”—of the Teachings. In spite the accuracy and robustness of any semantic analysis, the meanings of words in any language cannot be modified by decree or will, no matter how inappropriate they sound; that is why language academies seldom succeed in their preaching. Words have the connotation people and cultures decide, not the one etymology and grammar suggest. Buddhism is, in the eyes of the entire world, the great twenty-five-century old religion. This is its first meaning for most everybody. Where Buddhism and Teachings coincide (the latter are a subset of the former), the terms are totally interchangeable. It is as a religion that Buddhism has had an extraordinary impact in all cultures it has penetrated. I expect, however, that over time “Buddhism” will acquire also the meaning that best describes it, the one intended by its originator and the one the Teachings explain. And I also hope that at some point "Buddhist" will reflect more the sense of disciplined practitioner and less that of narrow-minded believer. While humankind is in much need of more honest right doers there are too many fanatics and sect followers doing wrong in the name of their faith.