Vipassana Meditation Retreat

Yesterday I returned from my first introduction to Vipassana meditation. This was a pretty incredible, intense 10 days, and I would recommend the experience to anyone and everyone. For me, it wasn't life-changing in a blinding flash of light kind of way, though I can see how some people might get that feeling. The light is more a steady glow suffusing everything else. You get a very different way of seeing and approaching things, and in that sense it's life-changing.

I have a bunch I want to say about Vipassana itself, so that's the first section here. Hopefully it's interesting to read, but if that's not your kind of thing, feel free to skip to the second section, which is more about my actual experience of the course.

About the Theory and Technique
First of all, I should mention that there are said to be three kinds of knowledge: blind faith, intellectual understanding, and experiential understanding. Vipassana is all about the third kind. They talk about the theory so you can know why you're doing what you're doing, but the truly important part is the practice. If you practice correctly you should see benefits in your life, regardless of whether you understand why (though of course that intellectual part does help the learning and the practice).

Therefore, I'm not going to describe the technique in detail. Part of this is because I know that if I saw the instructions written out, I would just jump to the end, say "that looks easy," give it a try for 15 minutes, and then give it up as no good. The technique is simple, but that's not the same as easy. It's a completely different experience if you spend a 10 hour day meditating on each incremental step in thoroughly learning the technique. (This is why it makes so much sense to have what seems like an intimidatingly long 10-day course for beginners.) However, I do want to share some of the ideas behind the technique.

Most of what they taught at the intellectual level wasn't anything new to me, and probably many of you have heard a lot of it before as well. Things like "suffering is caused by attachments to cravings and aversions," "everything is constantly changing and impermanent," "the only thing you can really control is how you think and react," and "only you can truly make yourself happy or unhappy." The problem is that just knowing this intellectually doesn't help much because it's so hard to do anything about it. And for a long time before the life of Gautama Buddha, this theoretical level was all there was, until he came along and created (or rediscovered) a technique for putting the theories into practice. That technique is Vipassana.

The theory says that there are four levels of the mind. The first two are perception and recognition -- pretty straightforward utilities that we don't need to worry about too much. Any sensory input (including thoughts and emotions) passes through these first. The third level is called vedanā in Pāli. This is the direct, physical sensation we feel as a result of this input. There are sensations created throughout our body for everything we experience. When we have a reaction to something "out there" in the world, what we are actually responding to is the physical sensation in our body generated by our perception of that object, not the object itself. That response comes from the final level, called saṅkhāra. It decides whether it likes or dislikes the sensations, then develops cravings or aversions to them, or trots out our old, established, habitual reactions. This is the problematic part, because the world is never conforming perfectly to our wishes, and we're therefore constantly feeling cravings and aversions that we can't satisfy, and that's what makes us unhappy.

The idea behind Vipassana is to learn to set up a filter of sorts between the vedanā and saṅkhāra parts of your mind. From a direct experience of the vedanā we can choose how best to react, without being slaves to our old habits of behavioral patterns or emotional reactions. The first part of doing this consists in developing your awareness. You learn to be aware of and focus on all the myriad sensations constantly going on in your entire body, from the most obvious to the most subtle. The second part requires developing your equanimity. Whatever sensations you observe, you do so objectively, dispassionately, taking them as neither good nor bad. If the saṅkhāra comes in and tries to make you react, you don't give in to it. The more you practice this awareness and equanimity together, the more you also come to realize (experientially) how much everything really is constantly changing. These things we form attachments to are coming and going, arising and passing away, all the time. Which makes it easier, of course, to just take things as they come and not form cravings or aversions for them.

I'll give a basic example first. When you're meditating 10 hours a day for 10 days, you have a plethora of very obvious and painful physical sensations to observe if you aren't yet good at noticing the subtle ones. At the end of Day 4, the first day of Vipassana proper, my legs were extremely sore and aching. I was also extremely worried that this would keep me from falling asleep, and then I'd be in horrible shape for getting up at 4 AM for another long day of work. Just before bedtime, though, I realized that we had just learned what to do about this. So I lay down, got my legs as comfortable as possible, then carefully noticed and analyzed the pains, letting my mind detach from them emotionally, and in that way was able to relax and go to sleep just fine. This is something I'm going to be doing a lot in the future, after long nights of dancing.

For another example, imagine being angry at someone. Your heart rate probably speeds up, along with your breathing. Various muscles probably get tense, and you may have other reactions. If you can really be deeply aware of and analyze these feelings, your experience begins to change. First of all, you're focusing internally rather than externally, so you're less likely to snap and do something stupid. And secondly, you start to realize that none of these feelings or impulses are really going to get you anywhere, so you can detach from them and start figuring out the logical, compassionate way to respond to the situation.

These kinds of experiences and reactions are going on at some level constantly in our lives. The big ones have bigger effects, but even the smaller ones are hugely cumulative over time, and can have large effects on our happiness and the happiness of those around us. Vipassana teaches you to whittle away at all of this; even if you don't have the presence of mind to practice Vipassana right in a specific situation, you're learning new habit patterns that affect your behavior even subconsciously. There's much more that can be said about the practice and benefits of Vipassana, but this is sort of what I see as the core of it, from a beginner's perspective, fresh out of my first course.

Also, hopefully it's clear from this that this isn't a religious practice in any way. People of all religions practice Vipassana and benefit from it, and the Buddha himself never wanted to convert people to "Buddhism." You're not only allowed but encouraged to keep your own faith. The evening discourses during the retreat had occasional references to reincarnation or karma, but they were always followed by a reminder that if you don't believe in that, it's not necessary for the practice of the technique.

About the Course
The California Vipassana Center is in a gorgeous area out towards Yosemite. The terrain is hilly and rocky, with lots of gorgeous manzanita trees. There are a few small walking trails within the course boundaries but I would have loved to have gone on some long hikes around there. There are separate dorms and dining halls for men and women; the meditation hall is shared, but divided down the middle.

The strict separation of the sexes is one of many rules that seem a bit extreme initially, but which come to make complete sense after a few days. Everything is designed to let you focus and concentrate to a degree that many of us had probably never experienced before. Noble Silence alone, which includes restrictions on even gestures and eye contact, frees up tons of brain cells that are normally engaged in everyday social navigation, politeness, etc. (It's very interesting, by the way, to be among 100 people who are all trying not to notice or be noticed by each other. Sort of like being in the middle of a rehearsal for a 10-day arrangement of 4' 33" with full choir.) The rule about celibacy, in addition to being about focus, gives you another desire or habit to learn to analyze and manage (and yes, this rule includes "self celibacy," if you know what I mean). As for separating the men and women, well, my meditation seat was on the aisle next to the girls' section, and I gotta admit, I was peeking sometimes. The mind really does grasp for any little distraction it can get.

I was put in the ghetto dorm, which seemed to be a couple trailers pasted onto a hut or something. Most of the others looked like they were probably nicer. On the plus side, there were only 5 of us in there (though it could have slept a lot more), so we each had a lot of space. I had a room to myself, which was very nice. We were all beginners in that dorm, and in spite of maintaining Noble Silence, we still saw each other coming and going all the time, and I still had a certain sense of camaraderie, with us all going through everything together.

The meditation hall is a large, carpeted room, with platforms in front for the assistant teachers to sit on, a stereo system for recorded instructions and chants, and a couple TVs for watching the evening discourses. (The teacher is S. N. Goenka, but the teaching is all through audio and video recordings from a course he led in 1991.) The floor is covered with a grid of meditation mats, and you get assigned your spot on the first evening and stick to it throughout. I was #36 (a 9 number, signifying The Hermit, appropriately enough) which was in the last row, next to the aisle. In the men's and women's foyers, there were huge collections of meditations stools, and cushions, pillows and blankets of all sorts. Within a couple days nearly everyone had elaborate, unique, custom configurations for their sitting spaces. When you get there early and just see all the stuff and no people, it looks like preparation for a giant slumber party. I wish I could have taken a picture. I had two separate configurations myself, for different situations, involving different combinations of a stool, four cushions, and a blanket.

Each day starts with an enthusiastic guy going around ringing a gong at 4:00 AM, when it is still very dark and cold. The first meditation session runs from 4:30 to 6:30, and you can do it in your room or in the meditation hall. In your room is a bad idea; beds are awfully tempting. The assistant teachers come in maybe half an hour from the end and play a recording of Goenka's chanting strange, guttural stuff in Pāli. I feel like I have a pretty decent acceptance of weird music in general, but it still took a little while for this to grow on me. In the end, I enjoyed having him there in some sense, supporting and encouraging us, even if I couldn't understand the words. There were shorter bits of chanting at most of the group sittings throughout the day as well.

At 6:30 you get breakfast, and a bit of daylight. Oatmeal, stewed apples, cold cereal, fruit, bread, and tea. I would usually pile all the warm stuff into myself that I could, then get back to my room and crawl back into my sleeping bag. The morning break went until 8:00, so I could usually get in a decent catch up to recover from 4 AM.

8-9 AM is a group sitting with everyone in the hall. These usually start with a recording of a chant or two and review of the instructions. 8:00 was usually my best time, since it was still early in the day, but I was feeling better than absolute first thing in the morning. Then there's a session from 9-11. In a lot of these, the assistant teachers would gather groups of five or six students together to have a little whispered conversation about how things are going with the technique, making sure every one is on the same page, and then meditating together for a few minutes. After that you can finish meditating in the hall or in your room.

11:00 is the lunch break, and longest break of the day, lasting a full two hours. Lunch is the main meal, and there was a nice variety of good, vegetarian food. The weather by this time of day was beautiful for eating outside and then going on a walk around the paths to stretch your legs. I'd usually take another nap as well, or at least lay down to rest and think.

The afternoon session from 1 to 5 was the longest, most grueling stretch. This was usually all just practice, with just a couple breaks. There was a group sitting in the middle, with the option to go off and practice on your own for the other three hours. I decided early on to just stay in the meditation hall the whole time. It was just more comfortable and easier to focus.

5-6 PM is "dinner" break. I use quotes because all you get here is some fruit and tea. Apparently you meditate better if you never get more than about 3/4 full, so they want to keep it light. For the most part this was alright, though I was always really ready for breakfast by the next day.

After another hour of group meditation, we have the thing we look forward to all day: the evening discourse. You still have to sit on the floor in the meditation hall, but it's a break with entertainment, which is otherwise unheard of. Each discourse was an hour-long video of Goenka talking about Dhamma, the theory of natural law that underlies everything we're working on. And he's really just delightful to watch and listen to. The overall impression is of someone's funny old grandpa just sitting on a porch talking about stuff and telling stories, and he can be really hilarious at times, too. Luckily Noble Silence didn't seem to apply to laughter, because there was plenty of that going on during the talks. But he also did a good job of getting the important points and concepts across.

The end of the evening had a short little nightcap of a session, during which we would receive instructions on what we would practice throughout the next day. (Most days had either new techniques or variations or refinements of the previous days' techniques, so you build up incrementally.) Then at 9 PM you could stick around and ask questions of the assistant teachers if you want, and then go to bed. If you're quick, you get 7 hours of sleep.

Speaking of asking questions, I did my fair share of that, as I always do. I mostly kept it to details and clarifications about the actual technique, though. I did have a lot of questions about the theory and application, but I found that after a day of sitting around and thinking about it, I could usually answer them for myself, which is much more satisfying and better for my learning process. Dhamma is really a very logical, scientific system, so pretty much everything I found myself wanting to know was work-out-able from the basic principles we got in the lectures.

Everybody has different ups and downs throughout the whole course. Day 2 is pretty commonly a difficult one. I think that's because it's the first day that you have to do it all again. On Day 1, you don't really know what it's like until you get to the end, but at 4 AM on Day 2, you have the maximum amount of awareness of upcoming torture. This was my worst day, painful, distracted, everything. But I think it was good to get the worst out of the way early on. There were some bumps later on, of course, but nothing as bad as Day 2.

On the afternoon of Day 4, we started Vipassana proper (after various meditating warm-up exercises) and with it began the Sittings of Strong Determination. You're always allowed to sit in whatever position you find most comfortable (ha! "comfortable") and shift as necessary. But during these sessions, you had to stay put for a full hour, without moving your legs or hands, and without opening your eyes. There were three of them a day, during the morning, afternoon and evening group sittings. This is where things really start getting tough. Luckily I had independently started forcing myself to keep still for a full hour on Day 3, so I had a bit of a head start. I think I did it more or less successfully every time for the rest of the course, though it took a long time before I could really achieve that in the right way. For some reason, it wasn't until Day 9 that I really grokked the equanimity part of it. Before that I had been relying far too much on sheer willpower and physical determination. But at least I got there in the end, even if it was kind of slipping under the wire a bit.

On the morning of Day 10 we were allowed to break Noble Silence and have a day of what Goenka calls "Noble Chattering." You can't practice as seriously then, but it gives you a bit of a transition day before going back into the real world the next morning. I had actually adapted to the silence extremely well, and found myself feeling very uncomfortable when the talking started up again (though there's something to practice the equanimity on). When the first guy passed me on the trail and said hi, all I managed was a grunt and a nod. By the time I got to lunch I could talk again, but couldn't concentrate. It was an immense struggle to focus on my conversation with the guy in front of me while being surrounded by other conversations, all of which I was perceiving approximately equally. Then there's also the weird issue of not really knowing who these people are in relation to yourself, after having spent 10 days with them but not interacting. Are they strangers? Friends? Comrades in arms? But things worked out and I got (briefly) to know some nice folks and there was some good fellowship there before we all had to leave the next day.

Coming back home was interesting. There's always some culture shock coming back from a trip of any kind, though luckily this particular trip gave me tools for dealing with that. But the real world is still somewhat overwhelming after a meditation retreat, and more so when I'm immediately given intense tests of my newfound equanimity skills. Oh well. I also talked the ears off a couple patient people, unleashing a flood of stuff I've been wanting to share for the last 10 days, which was very tiring. But I'm feeling better and more adapted today, so that's good.

If you're at all interested in learning Vipassana, please feel free to talk to me. I'd love to share more about the course and provide encouragement for doing it. I also have some informational materials to share, and there's a bunch of stuff on the website as well. It's really a fantastic experience that I can't recommend highly enough.

May all beings be happy.

Going to Meditate

Tomorrow I'm driving out to North Fork, CA for my first Vipassana meditation retreat. If you're curious about it, you can read up on the technique and the course here. It's 10 days long, and they really mean 10 days -- the arrival and departure days don't count. On each of those 10 days there will be some instruction and over 10 hours of meditation. I've done very little meditation in the past, and no Vipassana, so this is what we call jumping in head first. :-)

It's also a (mostly) silent retreat. There are specific times set aside when you can talk privately with a teacher, and of course they need to talk to teach you anything. But other than that, you're supposed to basically pretend you're alone there and ignore everyone else. If you have a cell phone, they lock it up. So needless to say, you won't be hearing from me for a while. I'll probably share about it when I get back, though, and in the meantime there are some other very detailed and amusing accounts of other people's experiences that you can read here and here.

Am I nervous about this? Sure, a bit. I'm not even allowed to have a book or a journal there, and that's nearly as scary as imagining trying to just sit for 10+ hours a day. I've never tried anything like this with my mind or my body and I have no idea what it will be like. And while I know I have some crud in my mind that needs to be cleared out, it's tough even thinking of letting go of that to focus on meditation so single-mindedly, not to mention the more pleasant thoughts. I'm also more uncomfortable than I'd expected to be with the idea of completely cutting off from my normal life for so long. I have silly anxieties about missing things, even completely ordinary things.

But there will be more dances when I get back, and my friends and family will still be here, as will my blog and my books and my music and anything else I feel so attached to. And 10 days isn't really all that long for something that has been such a life changing experience for many people. So overall, do I still want to do this? Definitely. If you want to know more about why, here's why.

Big thanks go to Eric Case for the inspiration and encouragement to do this.

Swami Kriyananda

On Sunday, Mom invited me over to Ananda to to see Swami Kriyananda. It was the last talk he was giving in America on this trip before going back to India. He was a direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda over 50 years ago, is probably as close to enlightenment or self-realization as anyone alive, and he also founded Ananda communities around the world, so it's like having a living saint come to visit. I've been immensely inspired by him just from reading Asha's book, which is a lovely collection of short stories and memories about him from all sorts of Ananda-affiliated people, so I was very glad to get to see him.

Swamiji is inspiring because he represents so intensely the qualities I want to find and develop in myself. No matter what situation he's in, he just absolutely exudes complete love and joy with every particle of his being. It doesn't matter that he's in his 80s, with his health and body falling apart; he just carries on joyfully letting God work through him and loving everyone around him. If you meet him for the first time and only spend 10 seconds with him, he can still make you feel like the most important, beloved person in the world. It's the most beautiful and powerful kind of personality I can think of.

The talk was gentle in presentation yet intense in content. Many things I believe in and want to strive for, and many that seem frighteningly unattainable. But after the talk was when we had the opportunity to actually greet Swami individually, and that, I think, would make the day worthwhile all on its own. For an hour, people queued up to each get their own few seconds in front of him, to introduce themselves, look into his eyes, and feel his touch as he blessed them. I have to admit that I was kind of nervous and self-conscious going up there for the first time, and I almost missed it through my own distraction, but the feeling was still intense. I don't know what to call it. It wasn't any one of the extreme, specific emotions I've been experiencing recently, but more like pure, and nameless, emotion. I moved to the side and cried quietly for a while, not because I was explicitly sad, but because it was the only way to gently let the feeling move through me. I watched the river of people continue to flow blissfully along in front of him, and the baby whose crying turned to giggles when Swami touched his head.

As the stream turned to a trickle and the end of the line came near, I spent a little while screwing up my courage, then added myself back into the queue. When I was back in front of Swamiji again, I admitted that I'd been through already, but this time wanted to ask for a blessing for someone far away. He very graciously said yes, of course, and as he put his hand on me, I spoke the name of the person with whom I wanted to share this experience. I don't know if I was more conscious this time around, or if I was trying more deliberately to channel the energy, or if it was just from going through a second time, but the nameless mystery emotion was even more powerful than before. It was a while before I was able to come back and focus enough to drive myself home.

If you're interested, the Ananda website has and audio recording of this talk (with video probably coming too), as well as many others. It's not the same as being there, but it's good stuff regardless. I also recommend Swami's reading of a P. G. Wodehouse story.

Peaceful Warrior

When I heard last year that Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman was being made into a movie, I didn't know whether to be apprehensive or excited. Unfortunately, it had a limited release and completely flopped -- because apparently nobody who reviewed it actually grokked it -- so I didn't get to find out. An interesting thing is going on now, though. They've decided to try re-releasing it, and they're also giving away free tickets for opening weekend (this weekend) as a different kind of marketing tactic, hoping it will then spread by word of mouth. (Story here, free tickets here.) So this is me doing my part for my free ticket.

Go see this movie if you enjoy: Buddhism, personal development, conscious living, "new-age" metaphysics, men's gymnastics, UC Berkeley, or, heck, gas stations. If you want to know more about it than that, go read about the book on Amazon.com or something, 'cause I'm bad at movie reviews. However, I will say that I ended up being quite pleased by the movie overall. It is by no means the equal of the book, but I think it's really about the best adaptation one could expect of it. While a lot was left out, they also added some scenes, most which surprised me by how good and "in character" they were.

Mom went to see it with me, and she was a bit worried because of what happened the last time I took her to a movie. The previews weren't helping, either. Apparently the theater had no idea who their audience was (or didn't have anything to fit us). Three in a row of the many previews were for The Condemned, Shrek 3, and Spiderman 3. Bit of a mix, that. Once the movie started, though, she realized it was safe and started trusting me again.

I recommend the book more than anything, of course (and as usual). But do go see the movie, too. There aren't enough movies like this around, so filmmakers need all the encouragement we can give them.

Catching Up on the Reading

I read through a pile of stuff over the weekend, so maybe I'll do a recap of some of the recent books that haven't been mentioned here yet. I'll back up a little bit to start, though.

A People's History of the United States was a pretty major project to get through, but certainly worth it. Its goal is to be biased in the opposite direction from typical history books, focusing on the perspectives of women, blacks, native americans, the poor, and other groups for whom the USA has not always been all that it's cracked up to be.

I read Middlesex so I could be the tie-breaker between Mom and Greg, who hated and loved it, respectively. The verdict: while it didn't sound like the sort of book I would ever read, it turned out to be surprisingly good. It's the story of a hermaphrodite from Detroit, but it encompasses the previous two generations of her/his family, starting the the grandparents immigrating from Greece. The overall family portrait that it creates is fascinating, even aside from the sheer unusualness of reading about a hermaphrodite.

The other day, Biz and I were talking about children's books, so I decided to go read Coraline, by Neil Gaiman. It's a great story, and definitely on the creepy side, so it was a lot of fun to read, in spite of being labeled for kids age 11 and up. I'd love for him to turn it into a novel for adults, but still, part of the appeal of this form is its compactness. Kids' books are generally much more to-the-point: they get you straight to the story, with no extra fluff, which can be a very refreshing change once in a while. It was also fun just to visit that section of the bookstore and see a lot of other books that brought back their own memories.

Miriam recommended Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach to me. That was a very interesting introduction that I liked because the Reconstructionist approach to Judaism seems very similar to my approach to religion in general. There is a very strong focus on evolving Judaism to keep pace with the evolution of society, and a lot of flexibility and encouragement for people to relate to the old traditions in ways that are meaningful to them today. A lot of good concepts in there, I think.

My newest audio book is Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, recommended to me by Eric. This one is going to be intense. Chapter 1 had me breathing fast just sitting in the car listening to it this morning. Wow.

And there's a lot more in my to-read list where those came from.

More from Conversations with God

I finished book one of Conversations with God yesterday. Overall I thought it was really an excellent book. (Certainly good enough that I'll hopefully get around to reading the two that come after it.) I'd strongly recommend it. I thought it had some particularly good things to say on the subject of relationships:

"Relationships are constantly challenging; constantly calling you to create, express, and experience higher and higher aspects of yourself, grander and grander visions of yourself, ever more magnificent versions of yourself. Nowhere can you do this more immediately, impactfully, and immaculately than in relationships. In fact, without relationships, you cannot do it at all." (pg. 121)

A major point following this is very interesting because it seems counterintuitive at first but then makes sense. The advice given is not to focus on the other person in a relationship, but rather on your Self. Concentrate on being the best person you can be. Naturally, this will involve paying attention to the other person as well, but it keeps the focus where it will do the most good, because you can have a greater effect on yourself than on anyone else. See problems not as obstacles but as opportunities to express your highest Self. Instead of getting upset and disillusioned from the inevitable difficulties, find the best and highest way you can respond to them.

"Never do anything in a relationship out of a sense of obligation. Do whatever you do out of a sense of the glorious opportunity your relationship affords you to decide, and to be, Who You Really Are." (pg. 138)

This has been yet another case where I find myself reading or learning something I wish I had known two or three years ago. Oh well. I suppose I'm probably learning it better this way.

Conversations with God

My current "Library of Awareness" reading is Conversations with God, by Neale Walsch. It's written entirely as a one-on-one dialogue between the author and God, with the former describing it literally as a transcription, rather than anything he deliberately created.

Naturally, the first issue addressed in this book is that of how to determine whether a thought, feeling, intuition, or voice actually comes from God or is a product of our own minds. This is vital not only because the validity of the whole book hinges on it, but because this is a constant question (or should be, I think) in our actual lives, even if God isn't dictating entire books to us. What I like about the answer given here is that it encourages us to trust our own highest personal feelings and experiences, rather than looking to religious authorities or scriptures for an explanation of how things are "supposed" to be. This isn't to say that those things are bad, but rather that God is constantly communicating with us every bit as much as he did with the writers of the Gospels, or with your favorite prophet, priest, rabbi or guru. We just need to recognize that and learn to listen.

This is important to me because it reflects a lot about how I try to approach this sort of thing. I've never yet (in my young life) been able to definitively say "I am of X religion," nor do I necessarily want to. What I want to do is to learn from all of them. Since most religions manage to disagree with or contradict most others in some way, this can be a little tricky. That's where the personal intuition comes in. I try to approach beliefs and traditions in such a way as to find the parts of them that resonate with me and my concept of God. I figure that there's no reason to restrict God to just one religion. He/She/It can, and probably does, use countless ways to communicate with me. The more of them I learn to listen to, the better. Of course, I realize that this is just my particular path at this particular stage. If a different course of action becomes more appropriate to my development in the future, I hope to notice God's prompts and follow them.

Of course, being a fallible human with conflicting thoughts and desires, just "trusting your intuition" is generally easier said than done. It could also seem rather self-serving, like it's giving us permission to take the easy way out and just do whatever we feel like. Here's what the book has to say about it (God speaking):

"Mine is always your Highest Thought, your Clearest Word, your Grandest Feeling. Anything less is from another source.... The Highest Thought is always that thought which contains joy. The Clearest Words are those words which contain truth. The Grandest Feeling is that feeling which you call love." (pg. 4-5)

The challenge, then, is to be constantly and honestly evaluating what we find in ourselves in these terms. I expect that it is this process as much as the specific result that is really important.

One other quote from the book I wanted to mention before I'm done here: "Every human thought, and every human action, is based in either love or fear. There is no other human motivation, and all other ideas are but derivatives of these two." (pg. 15)

This is a concept I've had as part of my consciousness for a long time. I don't even remember where I first got it. Probably from Dad. I was glad to see it dealt with in this book a bit, since I think it's an important one.

The Templar Revelation

"Scholars have confessed themselves puzzled over the basic question as to why Christianity -- out of all the Messiah cults of that time and place -- should have been the one to survive and flourish. As we have seen, the reason why the Jesus movement was almost the only such group to have gained lasting ground outside Judaea was that it was already recognizable as a mystery cult. The secret of its appeal was that it was essentially a hybrid, a blend of certain aspects of Judaism and of pagan, mystery school elements. Christianity was unique because it was reassuringly familiar to many Jews and also to Gentiles, while at the same time being excitingly different."
- Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, The Templar Revelation

This book has a lot of very interesting stuff about Jesus and early Christianity. One of the most surprising things was this connection of Christianity to pagan religions, particularly the Isian religion of Egypt (the worship of the goddess Isis). Pretty much all the mythological aspects of Jesus' life (virgin birth, resurrection, the various miracles, etc.) can be traced back there. The Lord's Prayer came from an Egyptian prayer to the sun god, beginning "Amon, Amon, who art in heaven...". Baptism was an Egyptian tradition (I had always assumed it must have been Jewish, since John the Baptist baptized Jesus). While Jesus may have been ethnically a Jew, there is a lot of evidence for his teachings being pretty far removed from Judaism.

The authors also spend a lot of time exploring the roles played by John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene, which have been considerably edited and downplayed by the Gospels and the Church over the centuries. The information about Mary Magdalene was particularly interesting because of the implications it has for viewing women as the spiritual equals of men. Apparently, in the first couple centuries C.E., women could not only be priests, but even bishops. Things changed around the time of the Council of Nicaea, of course, with the decisions and declarations about what was and wasn't Christianity, and the labeling of so much documentation as heretical.

The Council of Nicaea is something I still want to learn more about. The interpretations tend to come in two versions: 1) The council members were divinely inspired, had the right idea, chose the most accurate sources to base the religion on, etc. or 2) They made their decisions based entirely on what would work best to give the Church the power, control, or whatever that they needed. It seems that I tend to read things that work off one assumption or the other, whereas I would like to see some direct discussion of it to see where such an assumption would come from. That's actually the same issue that came up for me when I was reading The Case for Christ (by Lee Strobel) about a year ago. The whole argument of that book was very good if you accept his trust in the Gospels, which to me was the weakest part.

The Case for Christ is something I should probably go back and re-read parts of now, though, for comparison. One thing I did notice about The Templar Revelation was that the authors seem to assume that Jesus didn't necessarily die on the cross (which of course means that he wouldn't have been resurrected). Given that Strobel made a very good argument for that, I would have liked to see it addressed more. But still, Picknett and Prince had a lot of good stuff to say, regardless of which way you go on that particular question.

What I did like about this book, though, was that they're not just pulling all this stuff out of their hats and making up conjectures. A great deal of what they do is just collating independent research from many different historians, and showing how much historical evidence has been accumulated over the last century or so that isn't necessarily common knowledge, particularly in the Christian community, where a lot of the ideas would be rather problematic.

So anyway, this is an extremely interesting book, which I highly recommend. It's certainly a good follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, if you want to see where some of that stuff is coming from.

The Celestine Prophecy

A little while ago Eric C. mentioned to me that I ought to read The Celestine Prophecy, a book I had known vaguely about for a long time and had always figured I should eventually get around to reading. Apropos the subject of the book, it was a Wednesday (Project Read night) and that evening I happened to find three copies of it for sale in the library’s little bookstore. So I got one the and I just finished it tonight.

This was a good book, though I’d have to say that the story-telling of it felt a tad awkward at times. It seemed mostly that there was a lot of message to be conveyed and the story was sort of squeezed in around the corners and suffered a bit as a result. I couldn't help but wonder what someone like Richard Bach would have done with it. (I find it much easier with Illusions, for instance, to experience it as something that is actually happening, or has happened. Perhaps, though, that has to do with the fact that I know it so well that I hardly even have to read it anymore. I can just glance a few pages and have entire scenes in my head at once.)

But still, that being said, I really liked a lot of the concepts. The whole discussion of “energy” seemed sort of uncomfortably New-Agey sometimes (this is just a self-conscious hang-up of mine), but I do feel like I understand and can relate to the idea he’s referring to. I know that the more I focus and try to really be present with the people I interact with, the better the interaction goes, and the more I get distracted or otherwise distance myself, the more the interaction is weakened on both sides. The style of ideal conversation described in chapter 8 particularly resonated well for me. I also like how the whole book is a good exercise in looking at everything in your life as meaningful. That alone is a good thing to keep in mind.

One of my reactions to this book struck mnoticeablycably different than I think it would have been had I read it a few years ago. The talk of “energy” and “spiritual evolution” is all very good, but it’s lacking something. I think I feel more of a need now to see a specific God figure in the picture, something more coherent than the general concept of energy in the universe. Something to provide a frame of reference for the spiritual evolution. All my C.S. Lewis readings were probably a big influence on me in this respect, but also lots of other readings and thought-processes over the last year or so.

Whenever I read books like this I try to take important key points and just file them away in my consciousness somewhere. The idea is to have selections from a large portion of the world’s wisdom in there, from which I can guide and shape my life and personality to whatever extent I can manage it. It's a fairly cluttered place up there in my head, I think, but I hope that at some point it will achieve a good balance and sort itself out nicely.

The Relation of Banner Ads to Religion. Also Reading.

It's always interesting seeing what sort of ads show up at the top of people's blogs, since it's basically an indication of what some computer somewhere thinks any given blog is about. I've noticed that mine has been stuck for a while on things like being a "disciplined follower of Christ" and whatnot. So it seems like it's paying more attention to my reading list than anything else, since I haven't been posting about anything like that. Interesting. I wonder if it will pick up on the Judaism books I've been reading, as well. Something I've become really curious about from reading the Bible is the difference between the old and new testaments and, by extension, the difference between Judaism and Christianity, so I've added a bit of Judaism to my reading. I'm having a little trouble figuring out exactly what to read, though. Why Be Jewish? by David Wolpe was good, though kind of short. Judaism by Arther Hertzberg might be good, but it also looks like it might be kind of a slog. I can't tell yet. What I really want to find is sort of a Jewish version of C.S. Lewis. I'm not sure if there is such a thing, though, or who it would be. Back on the Christian side of things, St. Augustine's Confessions has actually been a lot more interesting than I expected. It's sort of like one huge, autobiographical prayer. Well, most of it. At the part I'm in now, he's sort of digressed and gotten bogged down in a lot of thick philosophizing about mind and memory and perception, and that's not the sort of stuff I take to as well. But for the most part it's been very good. I suppose that's why it's been a classic for the last 1500 years or so. :-)

In an entirely different vein, I've also started reading Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. It's one of those books that's always been on my enormous but vague list of things that I mean to read "eventually" though I never tend to think of them when I'm actually looking for books to read. But seeing an episode of Michael Palin's show where he recreates Phileas Fogg's journey made me start thinking about it. It'll be some nice armchair travelling, too.

So yes, I'm a complete bookworm, but sometimes that's just the most exciting thing going on. I started reading some C. S. Lewis the other day -- I never even read the Narnia books before (well, maybe the first one), but now I'm starting to look at some of his writings on Christianity and it's just fascinating. He's an amazing writer, of course, and I feel like I'm being offered a tiny glimpse of something huge that's beyond my grasp. And it's exciting in a way that mere books usually aren't, even to me. It's hard to explain, but last night it got to the point where I didn't want to put it down, but I also couldn't read a whole lot of it at once without getting up and physically moving around to use up some of the excess energy. But that's probably good, since there's so much I'm trying to absorb right now that my brain needs to be forced to take it in small doses. The other books I've been starting are really good, as well. See the list on the sidebar for details. The Most Reluctant Convert is about C. S. Lewis, so it also contains lots of fragments of his writing. It's really interesting to see the amount of change he went through in his life and beliefs. Anyway, back to work for me....

I went over to visit Gary Breitbard today and he helped me fix up Daniel's accordion a little bit so I can play it. We opened it up and mostly just loosened up a bunch of stuck reeds that weren't sounding right. We didn't do much tuning, which is trickier, but it will be good enough. He also gave me a tape and some sheet music with a few cool accordion tunes to learn, so that will be fun. Right now the glue is drying on the key that we stuck back on, so I haven't played it much yet. But I'm looking forward to being able to noodle around with it again.

Last night I went to hear Dr. William Lane Craig speak on "The Historicity of the Resurrection." He's a great speaker and it was really interesting, though not particularly new to me since I had read his chapter in Lee Strobel's book, The Case for Christ. It occurred to me, though, that a good way to sum up the approach of his argument is with a quote from Douglas Adams, of all people: "The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks." That seemed like just a humorous comment the first time I read it, but it makes a lot of sense in this context. You can come up with all sorts of alternative explanations for Jesus' resurrection which are technically possible but so highly improbable that belief in the "impossible" resurrection actually fits the facts much better. [This paragraph now branches into two alternative endings, depending on how sidetracked I want to get: ]

[Dr. Craig ending: ]
Overall, I think I agreed with all of Dr. Craig's points on the resurrection. Even so, it's difficult for me to just up and say "yes, I believe this actually happened." Partly because it is such an "impossible" event, but even more because I have to work out what other beliefs that would imply and how I would be able to accept or otherwise deal with them. That's something I'll have to think about.

[Douglas Adams ending: ]
This is something I really like about Douglas Adam's humor. Not only is it just plain funny, but there's intelligence behind it, too. It's humor you can think about, and yet still find it funny. I love it. I recently discovered a book called The Salmon of Doubt, which is a collection of various writings of his that people put together after he died. I've only read bits of it so far, but I highly recommend it. The introduction contains a short biography, which is also really interesting.

Last night I went to a talk by Dr. Alvin Plantinga called "Evolution vs. Atheism." The overall point of it was that if you believe in naturalism and evolutionary theory, then you cannot consider your beliefs reliable (since you can't say that we've necessarily evolved to have true beliefs), therefore this position is irrational. (Side note: I didn't get his distinction between naturalism and atheism. Why is naturalism like "high octance atheism"? Can any of you philosophy types out there explain that for me?) As far as I could tell, theism doesn't have this problem because it includes the assumption that God created us to have correct beliefs (very convenient if you're a theist, less than convincing if you're not). Otherwise he could just as easily have proved the same thing about it. The part of his argument I had the most trouble with, though, was his claim that false beliefs can produce adaptive behavior as well as true beliefs. I can still think of too many reasons against that. So anyway, this didn't produce any earth-shaking changes in my beliefs (not that I expected it to) but it was an interesting thing to think about for a while. Maybe I'll go back and re-read the notes to see if I can figure out what the false belief / adaptive behavior bit was all about.

Other issues that came up for me: How would we ever be able to tell our beliefs are true anyway, since there's no way to get information that doesn't involve belief? What would it really mean for them to be true? How important is it that our beliefs are true as long as they work and are consistent? Is there any point in talking about the truth of our beliefs? It all just seems to get so circular. Aack -- uncomfortable memories of Phil 184 are surfacing. I think I'll just let it all go.

Oh, one other thing: I went to the talk with Tina and a few other Testimony people, and apparently some sort of Testimony-ness is rubbing off on me. Justin introduced me to one of their sopranos I hadn't met before, and the first thing she said to me was "What year where you in it?" Somewhat amusing :-)

I just finished reading There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem, by Wayne Dyer, thanks to recommendations from Darrel and Mom. It is really an excellent book. It's basically about how you are what you think, and how that fact gives you more power over your own life than most people think you can have. I think there's a lot of advice in it that I've known about and maybe even followed to some extent, just from growing up with the parents I have. But it was good to have it all solidified like this for me, so I can really try to think a bit about how the concepts apply to my own life. I highly recommend reading it, whether for finding a solution for a specific problem or just for reading some good thoughts about life.

One small point that I wanted to pass on was how Dyer compares spirituality to health. You may be in good or bad health, but you can't escape having health at some level or another. Similarly, there are many different ways of relating to spirituality, but it's not an issue that you can meaningfully ignore. I found that interesting.

Daniel's friend Lee is visiting, so I just spent dinner hearing about various states of awareness, mystical experiences, and how Buddhism is not an atheistic religion. He's rather interesting to talk to, provided you don't worry about things like getting a word in edgewise :-)

Good day today. Piano seemed to go especially well. I don't know why, but I'm not complaining. It's nice, once in a while, to feel like I can actually play that thing. I'm also still working a bit on my sense of pitch. I think I'm actually getting significantly better at being able to pull a middle C right out of my head, provided I think about it carefully. It's still a ways from perfect pitch, and my relative pitch needs work too, but it's cool to think that I'm improving at it.

Testimony's winter show last night was fantastic. In addition to their usual wonderful music, they had some hilarious skits (Tina plays Piglet very well :-) and even a Lindy Hop choreography (by Kari) to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." The whole show got a very well deserved standing ovation.

Music is always a wonderful thing, but I think music and laughter together are a particularly good combination. That's just a thought that struck me on my way home last night. I feel like a good, solid dose of laughter has a way of flushing anything negative or unpleasant from my system and scrubbing me out clean. And then when there's music to fill me back up again well, life is just good. I don't consider myself a devout Christian, but I've found that, once I let myself get used to it, I can really relate in some way or another to a lot of the Christian music that Testimony sings. And you can tell, in the audience, that putting such a strong faith behind such excellent singers is a very powerful combination.

In other news, I just added commenting ability to my blog. So if anyone wants to leave me a note, go ahead and click on these little comment links at the end of each day's entry.