Which God do you deny?

I do not deny or defend the existence of God. My agnostic approach to the Divinity, which I expressed in a recent article, generated quite a variety of reactions. The notes at the extremes, from radical atheists or ardent believers, were both much more intolerant than open-minded. Out of the received comments, I assigned the gold medal to someone who defined agnostic as "an atheist who does not want to come out." Does this mean that I feel comfortable in my skeptical seclusion? I do not think so; it is not comfort but realism. It is impossible to accept or reject something that is confusing.

Agnosticism claims that human understanding has no access to notions such as the Divinity that are beyond direct experience and the scientific method. Many thinkers agree. Mythologist Joseph Campbell defines God as "a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought.”

The difficulty with the notion of God is that, due to its abstract nature, every religion has its own version of Him, and its followers eventually develop their own personal profile of their Creator. (Every devotee, of course, considers other faiths’ gods as fictitious and mythological). Likewise, atheists should also have an accurate idea of ​​the god they are rejecting; before denying something we should have a representation of it—you cannot say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a puzzling question.

There should not be such confusion. Dictionaries generally have only one entry on the ‘Almighty God’: "the Supreme Being worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe.” The interpretation of God, however, is dynamic. As belief systems disseminates to other societies or they are enforced on them, they change the mores of the conquered culture but, in the process, the newly converted also adjust the invading religion to their own habits. Consequentially, there are many versions of every creed.

Christians and Muslims worship one single God but their numerous branches have remarkable differences in their saints and angels as well as in their beliefs and rituals. Hindus are amazing:  They can be monotheists, polytheists, atheists or agnostics. What brings Hinduism together is their principle of unity in all existence. Could such principle correspond to the God of other faiths? The Hindu spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi Devi says, "God is pure Consciousness that dwells within everything.”

There is no possibility of agreement on what Divinity is. Some definitions are less rigid. For architect Frank Lloyd Wright, God is "the great mysterious motivator of what we call nature"; for novelist Leo Tolstoy, "that infinite All of which man knows himself to be a finite part”; for philosopher Baruch Spinoza, "the orderly harmony of what exists”; for biologist Stuart Kauffman," the ceaseless creativity of the universe.” You have to accept, atheist friends, these interpretations are rich points of view.

If we are to argue about the notion of God, we must first delimit the subject to discuss. (Right up front, agnostics, say, "we pass"). Religious wars start out of non-sense because the God of each cult is ‘the only and absolute truth’ for His followers.

Religions originated both from our curiosity about the remote start of everything (where did we come from? how did all this start?) and from the fear of our uncertain end (where will we go when we turn off the engine?).

According to cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin, among many other scientists, before the big bang that supposedly started the universe, there was nothing—neither matter nor energy nor space nor time. With apologies to the atheists, for me to accept such statement is an act of supreme faith. (The math involved is beyond my brain’s skills.) Musing over so huge mystery, American science journalist Steve Nadis suggests that, while the universe itself may have resulted from nothing— explain, please!— the laws of physics had to be in place beforehand “to govern the something-from-nothing moment that gave rise to our universe and the eternal inflation that followed”. These laws of physics, I add, could well be another definition of God, quite different from all the previous ones.

 

Gustavo Estrada

Author of 'INNER HARMONY through Mindfulness Meditation'

Suffering and Fanaticism

Cravings and aversions are mental conditionings recorded in our brain, without us noticing or authorizing them, that activate automatically in response to certain stimuli. Known as harmful mental formations in Buddhist terminology, they generate abnormal needs or threats. Cravings are demanding mental formations that trigger desires for something we lack. Aversions are rejecting mental formations that make us wanting less or nothing at all of something we have and dislike. Whether we are greedy or resentful, the associated cravings and aversions are fetters that enchain us to suffering.

Cravings and aversions are not the only chains that enslave us. The adherence to biased opinions is a similar fetter that also shackles us to suffering. Opinions are the broad range of prejudiced beliefs and bigoted views that lack backing from positive knowledge. We attach to opinions in a subtle way that makes them a sort of mental possessions.

As opposed to material goods, nobody can take our opinions away; even so, we defend them passionately: The more fervent our belief, the harsher our defense. The problem with opinions—religious, political, racial or sectarian of any kind—is that they put up a cloud that obscures our understanding, and alters reason, speech and behavior.

Basic appetites (for food, water or sex) come from biological needs; sound fears to dangers that may hurt us (guns, predators, disasters, etc.) are neuronal coded mechanisms that protect our survival. Opinions, on the other hand, do not satisfy any vital requirement. There is no such thing as a natural opinion that we develop by genetic design or we acquire as a biological protection. Once a bias takes over our mind, however, we find interesting any thought that agrees with our prejudice and we experience aversion to any opinion that contradicts ours.

In the first case, we somehow crave for the company of those who share our opinions. In the second one, the holder of clashing opinions becomes a repulsive person. Since the underrating of our belief system and the association with anything unpleasant cause us discomfort, our biased opinions will unavoidably bring us suffering.    

Opinionated people cannot recognize their contradictions or fallacies; their mental framework obfuscates their vision. They consider the color of the glass through which they see the world as the right one; you cannot explain ‘green’ to somebody who sees only ‘yellow’; his or her reaction will always be: “I do not understand how you cannot see the yellowness of my point of view.”

Biased opinions are pervasive, harmful mental formations with a negative impact on the outcome of our thinking. Biased views deteriorate the quality of our conclusions more destructively than misread information or weak reasoning resources. Says German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (parenthesis added):  “The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error(misinformation), not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers (lack of common sense) but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice”.

When we search for accuracy and reliability, the damaging influence of wrong data or deficient logic fades when compared with the distortions that biased views create. A careful review of the proceedings of an evaluation, by third parties or by the same person who did the analysis, will always detect any faults in data or logic. This is not so when we reach conclusions based on or supported by biased views. When this happens, we are unable to either recognize our own errors or accept third party’s correcting advice. We consider right only those opinions that coincide with our point of view.

People seldom change opinion; the more biased the opinion, the more difficult the modification. This resistance is particularly evident in the arena of religious or political beliefs. It is not so in hard sciences. Scientific viewpoints change as knowledge progresses and investigators develop and validate new theories, which outdate previous accepted models.    

People with opposing opinions will always have different pictures of the same reality; they see the world exclusively through the mental eyes of their own opinions. Unquestionably, biased views, not wrong data or faulty analysis, are the worst barrier to the truth in any field of knowledge. And what is worst: Besides leading to suffering, biased views are the roots of fanaticism and, consequently, violence.

 

 

 

Gustavo Estrada

Author of "Inner Harmony"

gustrada1@gmail.com

 

 

 

What is Inner Harmony?

Inner harmony is an internal state that permits us to be at peace and act confidently even in the face of difficulties. Inner harmony is not being in a good mood all the time; it is not ceasing to experience problems or the emotions associated with them. Inner harmony is neither the permanent show of a smiling face, nor the constant display of an optimistic posture. Instead, inner harmony is an evenness of the mind that, when troubles do arise, prompts our skills toward corrective actions, if they exist, or submits us serenely to the acceptance of reality, if problems actually have no solution.

Inner harmony is a worthy state of being—the ideal state—where most everybody would like to dwell. When we are enjoying inner harmony, we are living well. The paradox is, however, that we cannot move to such a wonderful state directly; we cannot take a particular sequence of steps that lead us there; we cannot produce inner harmony in a straight line.

Inner harmony is more the spontaneous result of a way of living than an intended, planned goal. People may look for things such as money, friends or academic degrees; these pursuits, though they may bring success, do not necessarily lead to inner harmony. While inner harmony is quite different from success, the two qualities do not exclude each other. People enjoying inner harmony might be successful—they might have money, friends and academic degrees—but those things come to them naturally and they do not get frustrated if such effects do not arrive. To the eyes of others, they are successful; to themselves they are at peace with whatever happens in their lives. Inner harmony, which is personal and intimate, cannot come from outside; this would make it outer harmony.

We should not seek inner harmony; when we are chasing inner harmony, we are losing it. If we should not hunt inner harmony, how do we get to experience it? How do we fulfill a yearning that we should not pursue? Instead of running after inner harmony, we have to direct our actions toward eliminating suffering, the opposite of inner harmony. Since suffering means anguish, agony, anxiety, desperation, pain, affliction, and a few more states or experiences, the word needs to be delimited.

Suffering is the set of negative feelings generated by cravings for what we lack, and aversions to what imaginarily or actually surrounds us.  Since cravings and aversions are the originators of suffering, it is these maladies what we have to eradicate from our lives.

We can compare inner harmony to silence. Both occurrences come from the absence of certain disruptions; they are not the outcome of specific actions. When there is noise in the environment and we are longing for quietness, we work on the sources of the distressing sounds: we turn off loudspeakers, end chattering and still motions. When the noise sources settle down, silence comes about.

Similarly, we cannot design or produce inner harmony; there are no instructions to build it. Instead, if we wish to experience inner harmony, we should work on the sources of the mental noise and shut them down; we must attack and destroy the roots of suffering. Cravings and aversions are the sources of the distressing sounds; they are like loudspeakers the stridencies of which break off inner harmony; we must turn off the sound system if we want to stop the noise. When we eliminate cravings and aversions, the suffering they are producing disappears; then inner harmony spontaneously blossoms.

 

Gustavo Estrada

Author of Inner Harmony through Mindfulness Meditation

Suffering, harmony and pragmatic Buddhism *

Emotional suffering is the set of negative feelings generated by cravings for what we lack (money, power, prestige ...) and aversions to what surrounds us (unpleasant people, events or things). The reciprocal dreads—the fear to lose what we already possess and the fear to get what we repudiate—complete the portfolio of the causes to suffer emotionally. Inner harmony, on the other hand, is the absence of emotional suffering.

Twenty-five centuries ago the Buddha established that emotional suffering could be eliminated by the removal of its causes or origins; this statement became the core message of his doctrine. His teachings, due to the zeal of his followers, derived into a religion, the fourth largest in the world. Pragmatic Buddhism, the subset of Buddhism that excludes legends, rituals, and rebirths, focuses on the Buddha’s original goal: the eradication of emotional suffering.

Although it evolves from emotions, emotional suffering is not such state of mind. Emotional suffering is a feeling, more specifically, a background feeling. Neurologist Antonio Damasio makes a subtle distinction between emotions and feelings. Emotions are the body's reactions to certain external or internal stimuli (e.g., a threat or a remembrance). Feelings are the perceptions of such reactions, that is, the record the brain makes when it becomes aware of them. While almost simultaneous, emotions precede feelings. We do not perceive emotions; we perceive feelings.

Most feelings share their names with their associated emotions¬¬—love is both an emotion and a feeling. Emotions, however, may end up as a different kind of feeling; for example, anger might unusually evolve into euphoria. Furthermore, several emotions might “blend” to generate a sort of unified feeling with which they “resonate”. Dr. Damasio refers to this sensorial resonance as background feelings. It is background feelings what produces the general tone of our life. The potential to stop emotional suffering is at the interface between emotions and background feelings.

Background feelings, in general, can be sorted out as either positive or negative (you can do the same with emotions). Background feelings almost always manifest in opposing duos regardless where they come from: tension or relaxation, imbalance or balance; instability or stability; fatigue or energy. The first items of each pair (tension, imbalance...) characterize emotional suffering; the second (relaxation, balance...) typify inner harmony. Background feelings help define our mental states; they darken or brighten our existence.

Emotional suffering echoes the wide range of human negative emotions, from the simple imaginary concerns, through depressions and slumps en moral, to the most intense, evil bitterness. There are quite many harmful emotions such as anxiety, anguish, despair, hatred, jealousy and envy; in fact, there are more expressions for negative emotions than for positive ones.

The word "suffering" describes both physical and mental distress, hence comes the need for the "emotional" qualifier. Pain, or physical suffering, is sometimes unavoidable and its treatment often demands medication. Emotional suffering, being mental, is almost always optional; its handling seldom requires drugs (the exception are psychiatric disorders with a clear organic origin.) Pain management is not in the Pragmatic Buddhist agenda; emotional suffering, including the emotional distress that comes from pain, definitely is.

Inner harmony is reached by appeasing cravings and aversions. "When cravings and aversions are both absent, everything becomes perfectly clear," said Seng-Tsan, third Zen Chinese patriarch of Zen. Inner harmony is indirectly reached through "the blowing out of the fires of greed and hatred.” (This is the Buddhist definition of "nirvana"). Inner harmony comes from within and does not depend on external factors¬—this would make it outer harmony; inner harmony flourishes spontaneously when cravings and aversions go away.

The elimination of emotional suffering is a very personal undertaking with no need of masters or congregations. Inner harmony is not achieved by devotion to any creed, affiliation to any doctrine or practice of any ritual. Inner harmony is not pursued; it shows up when the noises of emotional suffering are silenced. When people search for inner harmony in sects, groups or ceremonies, they could be inadvertently giving it up... Or, at a minimum, they could be surrendering their influence over it to somebody else.

Gustavo Estrada

Author of HACIA EL BUDA DESDE EL OCCIDENTE

True Nature *

Michelangelo believed that images already existed in the blocks of marble as if they were locked. Before the first cut, he thought, the sculptor should first discover the idea within and then proceed to remove the excess stone. Michelangelo, so easy for him, just chipped away from the marble what was not statue.


In the same manner, our ego, our brain coded sense of identity, is like a huge stone, sometimes truly heavy; within that rock there also lies our true nature, our own piece of art. If we are to find it, as the great Italian Renaissance artist suggests for marbles, we also have to remove the excess. We do possess the skills to chip away what is not really us and, when we are done, we’ll experience life and everything else very differently.


Our true nature comes out spontaneously after silencing our conditioned reactions. We do not find it though personality tests or psychological inquiries because your answers to such trials come from the conditionings that already make up our ego. We do not develop, build or refine our true nature; it is already in there. Neither we come across it by doing gimmicks or learning routines; the process is more about quieting mental noise and unlearning mental habits.


Once Michelangelo removed the redundant fragments the harmony of his Pietà, his David or his Moses was magnificent. What will we find when we cut down the surplus of our ego stone? Well, within us, there is also harmony, the inner harmony of our true nature. We just have to remove the unnecessary.

Gustavo Estrada
http://innerpeace.sharepoint.com/Pages/aboutus.aspx

Confession of a Buddhist Atheist

The title of Confession of a Buddhist Atheist summarizes the three perspectives of his life that Stephen Batchelor wanted to share with his readers: his religiosity—confession is a statement of religious beliefs, his adhesion to the Buddha, and his atheism in the non-theism meaning of the word.


The “confession” as such is a detailed record of his spiritual evolution, which takes him to an enlightenment of a nature quite different from “the ‘standard’ mystical experiences of oneness with the universe”. Batchelor’s confession vividly describes the viability of embracing the religiosity of the Buddha’s Teachings without the dogmas of Buddhism and without renouncing to the goodies and beauties of life

The “ist” of the Buddhist that Batchelor became is much closer to the “ist” in those who play an instrument (pianist, violinist) than to the “ist” in the advocates of a doctrine (socialist, communist) or the fanatics of biased views (racist, chauvinist). You do not need sectarian opinions to play piano or violin, you just play; you don’t need beliefs for being Buddhist because being Buddhist is an experience, a way of living. In this book, the author, an impressive scholar, narrates his personal evolution and reconstructs the Buddha’s one; both journeys are described with abundant spiritual, historic and geographical detail. It is well known that there are no dates in the Pali Canon. Still the writer proposes a very interesting sequence of different events in the Buddha’s life; this is the first time I read a proposal for such sequencing. Even though the task involves much analysis and knowledge, Stephen Batchelor is humble enough to say that the source of the raw data already existed in the Dictionary of Pali Terms and that his role was simply “the joining up of the dots”. It was indeed much more than that.

To describe his cosmological/theological views, Stephen Batchelor seems to prefer the term “atheism” (again as non-theism) to “agnosticism” (the impossibility to know the ultimate reality) and avoids (probably on purpose) the word “spirituality”. I find the author’s view quite close to the atheist spirituality that French philosopher André Comte-Sponville defines as “our openness and connection to the infinite, the eternal and the absolute.” Either as non-theism or atheist spirituality, these renovated and renovating views, both Batchelor’s and Comte-Sponsville’s, are much needed in the modern, confusing world, which, though more secular every day, it does need spirituality. Such intellectual non-theisms imply the “tolerant radicalism” of Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti (which Stephen Batchelor a kind of dislikes) and exclude the anti-theism of the “richarddawkinses” and “samharrises.”

There are quite a few interesting, historical events and anecdotes related in Batchelor’s book running from the Buddha’s time and life (which come from his knowledge and research) all the way to the Dalai Lama’s modern era (which are the fruit of his experience and direct interactions). The author’s enthusiasm for the beauty of the Teachings leads him to some overstatements. He says, for instance, that he has “yet to find a fragment of the Pali Canon that doesn’t further illuminate the whole.” (I find this exaggerated; many parts of the Canon are not only repetitive and boring but also obscure and with observations in contradiction with other sections.) These are minor spots that in no way reduce the quality of “Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.” The book is an excellent reading not only for newcomers in search of non-affiliated view in the Teachings and for already faithful, open minded religious Buddhists but also an illuminating perspective for agnostics, atheists, pragmatics, skeptics and independent inquisitive minds of all kinds.

Gustavo Estrada
Author of HACIA EL BUDA DESDE EL OCCIDENTE

Suffering

The proper definition of some Pragmatic Buddhism’s terms is essential for its comprehension. Though certain clarifications might look redundant at times, we offer them because Pragmatic Buddhism, as most any knowledge area, has its own terminology—a sort of restricted vocabulary—that is a requirement to introduce the subject. We chose to do so rather than using eastern languages’ vocabulary that would, in any case, require translations and explanations. Furthermore, English words have an average of three different meanings each and the usage of some expressions of Pragmatic Buddhism does not accurately match any of the alternatives in the dictionary.

Let us begin our glossary with the word “suffering.” We use “suffering” in this blog because it is the most accepted translation of the original term in Buddhist texts. Most scholars agree that no English word is exactly equivalent to what the Buddha meant by suffering. The explanation that follows will clarify it. There are a number of rough synonyms of the "suffering" under consideration, such as anguish, discomfort, dissatisfaction, distress, frustration, sorrow and stress; none of them provide the exact sense of Buddhist “suffering.”

For Pragmatic Buddhism, suffering is the whole range of human anxieties from “tolerable” cravings, dislikes and worries, through “problematic” addictions, hatreds and depressions, to “clinical” disorders such as dependence, phobias and compulsive behaviors. Suffering runs from Henry David Thoreau’s “quiet desperation, led in their lives by the mass of men,” to the agonizing misery of those who have totally lost the control of their existence.

Two additional remarks help in the understanding of this thorny item. Suffering covers all the difficulties and uncertainties that characterize life activities including those which that, by their very nature, are or should be expected to be pleasant or interesting. We all know from firsthand experience that some positive and favorable situations, such as a new job assignment, the preparations for a celebration or the initiation of a romantic relationship, lead to or predispose a certain degree of anxiety and are likely to create difficult moments; such anxiety is one of the manifestations of suffering for Buddhism. Still the challenges of a job promotion, the preliminaries of a party or the charms of a potential romance are not "western" suffering, in the common use of this word.

Furthermore, Pragmatic Buddhism differentiates suffering from pain—grief from ache. Suffering, as we use it here, is mental—an intellectual process, a product of the mind—as opposed to pain, which is physical—a corporal process, the result of something wrong in our body. While pain is often unavoidable, suffering is always optional.

The reduction and eventual elimination of this suffering, which we hope it is clearly defined and delimited now, is the agenda of Pragmatic Buddhism.