Sean Robsville

Buddhist Candlemas

2012-01-28T11:58:00.000-08:00

February 2nd is Candlemas Day

Candlemas Pagan Origins

Christianization
When Christianity came to the Celtic lands, it took over many of the Pagan festivals and Christianized them. This was far more acceptable to the people than banning them, as the Puritans were to do many centuries later.

Its always easier for new religions to work with the existing culture than against it, a policy also pursued by Buddhism in its spread throughout Asia.

Pagan Imbolc was Christianized to Candlemas

Buddhist interpretations
Now that Buddhism is establishing itself in Western Europe, there is a movement to reinterpret some of these ancient, numinous Pagan festivals from a Buddhist perspective.

The FWBO has a program of honoring the Five female Buddhas, on the day and time of the year associated with each of them. The cycle begins with the Summer Solstice and female Buddha Mamaki.

The Turning of the Year

The Autumn Equinox, is a ceremony dedicated to Pandaravasini, the female Buddha of the Western direction associated with dusk and the wisdom of uniqueness.

Light of Wisdom in the Dusk

Later in the year it is the turn of Samayatara, the female Buddha of the Northern direction associated with midnight and the wisdom of action (Halloween/Samhain); and Akasadhatesvari, the female Buddha at the centre of the Mandala beyond time and space. She is associated with the ineffable wisdom of the Transcendental. Her ceremony takes place at the time of the Winter Solstice.

Western holidays from a Buddhist perspective.
On this blog I have also suggested how Halloween, Christmas and New Year can be given Buddhist interpretations.

Candlemas - Festival of Offering Lights to the Goddess
The next festival is Candlemas, also known as Imbolc, which in pagan times was an offering of Lights to the Goddess in the aspect of Brigit or Bride. This ancient festival takes place on February 2nd and marks the mid point of winter, half way between the winter solstice (shortest day) and the spring equinox.

Brigid as Christian Saint and Pagan Goddess

Of course the idea of a Goddess was anathema to the patriarchal, misogynistic ancient church, and Brigid, who was too popular to get rid of, was demoted from Goddess to Saint. The idea of honoring the feminine was turned on its head, and the festival became the Purification of the Virgin, to remind women of their ritual uncleanness.

Brigit as Celtic Trinity

However, if we return to the original pagan intention, we can see that Candlemas, although now almost abandoned by the Christian churches, has potential for adaptation by Buddhists.

Buddhists honor many female Buddhas, for example Tara and Guan Yin, and the lighting of a candle or an oil lamp represents the light of wisdom illuminating the darkness of ignorance.

Light offerings to Tara

With lights brightly shining
Abolishing this gloom
I adore the Enlightened One,
The Light of the three worlds.
- Wiki

Offerings of lights are said to have many beneficial effects.

And so Candlemas, already resonant with ancient evocative associations with divine light, is easily adaptable to Buddhist practice.

No danger of 'mixing'
Such adoptions of pagan festivals do not involve 'mixing' of the dharma with other doctrines, because there is no impact on the philosophical foundations of Buddhism such as the Four Seals. Nor is there any impact on the form of practice. The celebration of these occasions is simply performing Buddhist rituals in the context of Celtic cultural traditions.

Buddhism is not itself a culture. It is transcultural - valid for all sentient beings, in all places, at all times.

Light of the World

Candlemas

Creationism Crisis for Christianity = Opportunity for Buddhism?

2012-01-22T13:18:00.000-08:00

Crisis in Christianity
From the rationalist's point of view, Christianity is deteriorating rapidly, with a headlong retreat into obscurantism, anti-science and general dumbing-down.

Quotes from a recent article at The Huffington Post: New Survey of Protestant Pastors Shows Rejection of Human Evolution by Brandon G. Withrow

"In a new survey of American Protestant pastors by Lifeway, 73 percent of ministers disagree with the statement "I believe God used evolution to create people." Of that large number, 64 percent strongly disagreed. As you might expect, the numbers were close to the same for the question, "I believe Adam and Eve were literal people," with 74 percent strongly agreeing and only 1 percent not sure."

"The survey of 1,000 ... also found that ministers are almost evenly split on whether the earth is thousands of years old." - In other words, 50% of pastors reject the entire science of geology, instead they believe that the earth was created according to the Biblical timescale within the last 10,000 years - a Christian doctrine known as 'Young Earth."

"Evangelicals tend to be the least likely category for embracing evolution, and here's why: The acceptance of evolution and potential rejection of Adam and Eve can require more changes than just how one reads Genesis 1; it could result in a rewriting of the idea of original sin. It can affect the evangelical narrative. Without the sinful nature acquired by a real Adam, how does one engage the problem of evil and the necessity of the work of Jesus? Does this nullify the evangelium or "good news" of the Bible?

"But is this slippery-slope warning the only way to approach the conversation? Not all are convinced that past evangelical approaches to the Bible are always the best.

"Peter Enns, author of "The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say about Human Origins," recently wrote on his blog that "Evolution threatens the evangelical narrative. And it's not a joke. The threat is real." [Full disclosure: I am a personal friend of Peter Enns]

"He continued: "It really does come down to the ... Bible: what is it and what does it mean to read it well? The evangelical movement has invested a lot of energy in building thick walls around the Bible, ready to defend it against challenges, real or perceived, that threaten its safety."

"Enns' solution, however, is not to flee the threat, but to learn how to write "new narratives ... where openness to theological change is warranted." Enns believes that Evangelicals need to work on, and improve upon, how they read their Bibles, not reject evolution.

"Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham sees it differently. In reacting to the survey by Lifeway on his blog at Answers in Genesis, he sees the main problem (in terms of priority) as that of an old earth instead of evolution. "For the secularists," writes Ham on his blog, "they have to have millions of years -- without this they can't postulate enough time for evolution." The slippery-slope does not start with Adam; for Ham, it starts with the geological timeline.

"Bottom line - -evolution is really not the problem as much as the age of the earth," says Ham. "Millions of years is the problem in today's world that has resulted in a loss of biblical authority in the church and culture and has led to an increasing loss of generations from the church." The belief that the world is millions of years old is, according to Ham, a "lie of Satan in this present world" that "permeates the church."

Shackled to a corpse?
This insistence on the Biblical creation myth is shackling Christianity to a corpse. The widespread anti-evolution, anti-geology, anti-rationalism attitudes within the churches will alienate an increasing number of intelligent people. The Young Earth doctrine also requires believers to reject...

- Plate tectonics
Plate tectonics is the scientific study of earth movements, which proposes that the continents have not always had their present shapes and locations, but have gradually drifted over the course of millions of years. Many of these movements are still continuing. Where plates slide past one another they give rise to seismically active faults such as the San Andreas fault in California and the Great Glen of Scotland.

- Dating by radioactive decay
When the current isotopic composition and rate of decay of radioactive isotopes in rocks is extrapolated backwards, many samples appear to be hundreds of millions of years old. The fundamentalist counter-argument is that the rate of decay was much higher in the early days of the earth. However, this implies that the background radiation immediately post-creation was hundreds of thousands of times what it is now, which would be severely damaging to the reproductive abilities of all creatures. Living in the Garden of Eden would be equivalent to sitting on top of Chernobyl.

- Cosmology
Many of the galaxies in the Universe are so far away that light has taken millions of years to travel from them. But according to Genesis, God created the stars after the earth, so in theory we shouldn't be able to see them. The Fundamentalist explanation is that God has constructed a vast planetarium surrounding the solar system, from which He projects the appearance of an old universe towards us in order to tempt sinners into disbelieving the Bible.

- Genetic code
Humans and our nearest primate relatives such as chimpanzees have over 98% of the 'text' of our genetic code in common. The 'alphabet' of the code is identical. This is totally unacceptable to Christian Fundamentalists and is explained as being a lie spread by secular humanists.

A Teachable Moment for Buddhism?
As Christianity dumbs down, could Buddhism become more attractive to rational people in search of a religion? Buddhism does not rely on any particular creation myth, and is philosophically more predisposed to evolution than to creationism.

Special Creation and essentialism

Creationists believe that species are unchanging and derive their forms by reference to a divine blueprint. Theology has long been dominated by the ideas of the Greek philosopher Plato, who taught that the species were invariant, deriving their characteristics from reference to 'essences' or 'ideal forms' which were fixed, eternal and inherently existent.

Buddha with cherry blossom

To a Creationist a rose is a rose is a rose, and would smell as sweet by any other name. There is no way a rose bush could fade into a strawberry plant, or a cherry tree, or a tangle of brambles, or a mountain ash, or a raspberry cane, or a hawthorn bush, or an apple tree. These are all totally distinct and immediately recognisable species - separate types of plant with nothing in between. Theologians base their time reckoning on the chronology of the Bible which states that the world and all its species were created in six days of a single week around 4004 BC .

Burnet rose

Evolution and impermanence
Evolutionists believe that species arose by gradual change from simpler forms. Strawberry plants, cherry trees, blackberries, raspberries, hawthorns and apples all have a family likeness because they all arose from a common ancestor, which resembled a primitive rose. Hence botanists call this plant family the Rosaceae.

Strawberry

Similarly, all primates (including humans and apes) have a common ancestor. Going back further, all species of mammals diverged from a common ancestor, and so on into the dim and distant past until we reach one common ancestor of all lifeforms, which originated the DNA coding which is universal for all plants, animals, fungi and bacteria on earth.

Consequently, to evolutionists the biological species concept does not reflect any underlying reality. A species is purely a snapshot of an interbreeding population of organisms at a particular epoch in time, and as time progresses the characteristics of that population will gradually change in response to selective pressures.

From 'Evolution' in Buddhism A to Z

Buddhist philosophy
Buddhist philosophy is evolutionary and thus agrees with the scientists rather than the theologians. Buddha taught that all things are impermanent, constantly arising, becoming, changing and fading . Buddhist philosophers consequently rejected the Platonic idea of production from 'ideal forms' as being the fallacy of 'production from inherently existent other'.

According to most schools of Buddhism there is nothing whatsoever that is inherently or independently existent.

The two main creationist objections to evolution are:
1 Disagreement with Genesis
2 Blurring of the theological distinction between human and animal

Neither of these pose any threat to Buddhist philosophy. The first objection is based on the need to maintain the truth of a particular creation story in order to preserve the underlying basis for all Biblical truth. This is not a worry to Buddhists because there is no corresponding Buddhist creation myth, and Buddhist philosophers have always accepted that the universe is many hundreds of millions of years old.

The second theological objection is that evolution states that there is a continuum between ape and man, i.e. human and animal.(A favourite anti-evolutionary slogan is 'Don't let them make a Monkey of You!).

This is not a problem for Buddhists, who believe that both humans and animals possess sentient minds which survive death. However, it is a major problem for theologians. The church has always taught that only humans have immortal souls, whereas animals are automata whose minds cease at death.

Christians believe that humans and animals were created separately and hence are totally different types of being. But if there was a gradual transition between animal and man, as the evolutionists claim, then such theological beliefs fall apart.

The theologians are left with three alternative unpalatable viewpoints:

- Both humans and animals are and always have been automata (the materialist's position).
- Both humans and animals are sentient beings whose minds survive death (the Buddhist position)
- At some arbitrary date in the past, the apemen were suddenly equipped with souls.

The undermining of the doctrine of the distinction of human from animals is probably an even greater threat to the theological viewpoint than doubt about the literal truth of Genesis.

Conclusion
Buddhism could attract increasing numbers of adherents by emphasizing its compatibility with science, in contrast with the increasing irrationalism and intellectual degeneracy of both Christianity and Islam.

RELATED ARTICLES

Rational Buddhism

Essentialism in Physics, Chemistry and Biology

Is Richard Dawkins a Buddhist?

Accepting our Evolutionary History does not Mean Rejecting our Spirituality

Geek week - nurturing your inner nerd.

2012-01-16T07:18:00.000-08:00

Can computer analogies help with
understanding Buddhist Philosophy?

Rational Buddhism is celebrating Geek Week, with three articles dedicated to all dharma dweebs, nerds, techies and code-freaks. The common theme is how computer analogies can be used to illustrate the more obscure aspects of Buddhist philosophy.

Celebrating Geek Week

'Algorithmic compression and the three modes of existential dependence in Buddhism' (how's that for a catchy title!) looks at how the way things exist can, up to a point, be modelled by algorithms and datastructures. But the model breaks down when it comes to understanding the meaning of computer variables, and we are left to contemplate that ultimate Geek Goddess, the mysterious Mother of all Algorithms...

Homage to the Mother of All Algorithms

'Mereology and Buddhism: Mereological Dependence in Buddhist Philosophy '
This article introduces the word 'Mereology', which every dweeb should use frequently to maximize geek-cred. As well as that, the article looks at how relational database concepts can more accurately reflect the 'basis of designation' than traditional western philosophical terminology. Bonus topics include isomers, enantiomers, engineering subcomponents and hierarchical bills of materials.

This guy's got Geek-cred

'The dumbing down of computer literacy and decline of programming in education' examines how the removal of programming from the school curriculum in favor of the Micro Soft-option is making the traditional code-freak into an endangered geek subspecies.

Endangered species

The replacement of coding skills by 'applications' such as MS Word and Excel has the knock-on effects of general dumbing down, and in particular in reducing the relevance of computer illustrations of dharma topics for the generation currently passing through college.

However the situation may change thanks to a $25 raspberry pi.

Contemplating interconnectedness

Finally, The Metameme - could the principles of antivirus software be used to destroy terrorist memes within the minds of Jihadists?

Prayer versus meditation? They’re more alike than we realize

2012-01-16T02:24:00.000-08:00

Tao Hong's Lofty Mountains and Flowing Water

(Photo: Gong Rui/GT)

From the Vancouver Sun

'You could call it a religious war of words, with the West Coast serving as one of its most intense battlegrounds.

The bid to win hearts and minds pits Buddhist meditation against Christian prayer, with meditation, especially so-called “mindfulness,” seeming to be gaining ground.

It’s been the focus of more than 60 recent scholarly studies. It’s being embraced by hundreds of psychotherapists, who increasingly offer Buddhist mindfulness to clients dealing with depression and anxiety. It’s been on the cover of Time magazine.

Even though polls show there are 10 times more Christians in the Pacific Northwest than Buddhists, the forms of meditation associated with those on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean are rising to the fore in North America.

Buddhist meditators, who tend to think of themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” claim what they do is not “religious.” That’s part of the appeal of mindfulness. Such meditators complain that Christian (as well as Jewish and Muslim) prayer over-emphasizes pleading with, confessing to or praising a God.

But meditation, Western Buddhists maintain, is simply a “practice.” It’s “secular,” with no traditional God, even while it may also be “spiritual.”

It turns out, however, that the gap between Buddhist meditation and Christian prayer might not be so huge. Indeed, some forms seem almost identical.

Still, the many well-educated, well-off Westerners who have been drawn to Buddhism, including famous Vancouver spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, have scored some important points when they criticize Christian prayer for being too busy, too noisy and too focused on soliciting otherworldly aid.

Indeed, Rev. Ellen Clark-King, the archdeacon of Christ Church (Anglican) Cathedral in downtown Vancouver, is among many who acknowledge Western Buddhists may have been doing Christians an indirect favour.

She does, however, go out of her way to cite the dangers inherent in claiming one form of spiritual practice is superior. There are many paths to the holy, she points out.

In her new book, The Path to Our Door: Approaches to Christian Spirituality (Continuum), she suggests the popularity of Buddhist meditation has prodded many Christians to re-discover some of the tradition’s less well-known meditative and contemplative methods.

“When considering silence as prayer many people’s first thought is of the Eastern, especially the Buddhist, tradition rather than the Christian,” writes Clark-King.

“Buddhism is seen as the natural home of contemplation while Christian prayer is believed by many to focus almost exclusively on intercession, confession and praise – all three very wordy ways of praying. However, this is to ignore a crucial – and central – component of the Christian spiritual path.”

Why has it taken so long for many Christians to seize on to their tradition’s contemplative practices? Clark-King speculates it is hard for anyone, whether Christian or Buddhist, to face the “emptiness” of solitude, which many equate with loneliness. It takes away our distractions and leaves us with only ourselves and, as she says, God.

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN MEDITATION AND PRAYER

Silent Christian prayer is closer to Buddhist meditation than many realize

It can be revealing to discover the similarities of Buddhist mindfulness and Christian prayer. The noted Buddhist magazine, The Shambhala Sun, is just one of thousands of sources on mindfulness.

In a how-to article, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche tells those who want to learn mindfulness to first get into a comfortable position and then note when thoughts arise.

Just monitor your thoughts and feelings without getting stuck on them, teaches Sakyong Mipham. “Say to yourself: ‘That may be a really important issue in my life, but right now is not the time to think about it. Now I’m practising meditation.’”

By labelling one’s “wild” thoughts and feelings, Sakyong Mipham says, mindfulness practitioners begin to recognize the mind’s discursiveness. “We notice that we have been lost in thought, we mentally label it . without judgment.” The ultimate goal, Sakyong Mipham says, is to keep noticing one’s breath, to reach tranquillity.

Even though Clark-King is not arguing that Buddhist mindfulness and Christian prayer are exactly the same, it is fascinating to note how similar her language is to that of Sakyong Mipham when she describes at least two forms of Christian contemplation.

The first form is set out in The Cloud of Unknowing, a classic book writ-ten anonymously in the 14th century, probably by an English monk.

The Cloud of Unknowing calls for a kind of contemplation that requires radical “openness” to a non-controlling God, Clark-King writes. “All that the pray-er does is keep silence as far as is possible, surrendering every thought as soon as it occurs without paying any attention to it whatsoever...

Read it all at http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/01/15/prayer-versus-meditation-theyre-closer-than-most-realize/

People of Shambhala - documenting Islamic aggression against vulnerable minorities

2012-01-04T05:44:00.000-08:00

Many of us will be familiar with Western Judeo-Christian counterjihadist blogs such as Jihad Watch, Atlas Shrugs, Gates of Vienna, Infidel Bloggers, Debbie Schlussel, and Bare Naked Islam. These tend to concentrate on Islamic attacks against Christians and Jews, and the problems of creeping Sharia, stealth jihad and infiltration and subversion in Europe and America.

But here's something unusual - a non-Eurocentric blog that reveals the extent of the Islamic persecution of the smaller religions of Asia and the Middle East.

From 'about People of Shambhala'...

"People of Shambhala is dedicated to raising awareness of the discrimination, oppression, and violence suffered on a daily basis by minority religions around the world today, especially under Islamic or Islamist regimes. We believe that, because of misplaced political correctness, the mainstream media has ignored the plight of minorities such as the Zoroastrians in Iran, the Yezidis in Iraq, the Kalash in Pakistan, Buddhists in Indonesia and Thailand, and others.

Many of these people have been ethnically cleansed, have suffered campaigns of rape and murder, have been burnt out of their homes, or had their temples and holy sites destroyed. We believe it is time to stand up and to raise awareness off the plight of the victims, and to put an end to the terror that faces many minorities today.

The International Civil Liberties Alliance has said that People of Shambhala "shows what is happening with regard to human rights in the non-Western world..."

About our header:

On the header you'll see many different peoples represented, all of which have been the targets of Islamic militancy. From left to right:

1. Three Kalash girls; 2. A Yezidi temple in Iraq; 3. The Hindu Aum, symbol of Creation; 4. A Buddhist monk; 5. the forget me not flower -- a symbol of Freemasonry; 6. A statue f the Buddha; 7. The peacock, the symbol of the Yezidi (sun worshipper) faith; 8. The symbol of the Zoroastrian faith; 9. A female practitioner of Yoga, an Indian system of postures for encouraging health and cultivating spirituality; 10. A Hindu guru; 11. A Buddhist Monk; 12. Zoroastrians standing in front of a painting fo the prophet Zoroaster or Zarathustra."

Buddhist culture eradicated from Dar al-Islam

The mainstream media has largely overlooked, and has even hidden, attacks on minority religious, ethnic, and spiritual groups, such as Buddhists, Hindus, the Kalash in Afghanistan, Baha'is, Zoroastrians and Mandeans in Iran, and other groups represented on this website.

The reason these stories never come to light in the self-loathing Western media, is probably because they disprove the politically correct dogma that jihadist attacks are the fault of the West, with Islamic hatred of Jews and Christians being a justified response to the Crusades, Colonialism and Zionism.

These jihadists attacks against small and defenseless religious groups, who have never offended Muslims (except by their very existence), show conclusively that Jihadists will carry out genocidal pogroms against ANY non-Muslims when they're strong enough to attack successfully.

Bernard Lewis, renowned historian of Islam and the Middle East, says Islam imposes, without limit of time or space, the duty to subjugate non-Muslims

In The Political Language of Islam, pp. 72-73:

"...it is the duty of those who have accepted them [Allah's word and message] to strive unceasingly to convert or at least to subjugate those who have not. This obligation is without limit of time or space. It must continue until the whole world has either accepted the Islamic faith or submitted to the power of the Islamic state.”

+++

Now call me a bigoted old Islamophobe if you like, but I still fail to see why, if the Muslims have got the best product in the spiritual supermarket (as they are always telling us), they need to get so paranoid about the competition.

If you're selling sliced bread, then you don't need to sabotage the bakeries and distribution networks of the crusty loaf producers to market your stuff. Or hire goons to beat up anyone seen returning from their shopping carrying a baguette.

Maybe, behind all the bravado and supremacism, the Muslims don't have much faith in the real sales potential of their product, if they were ever to let the consumers have a free choice.

- Sean

Visit People of Shambhala

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Islam against Buddhism

2011-07-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

A chilling article from American Thinker.

Islam versus Buddhism: Is The Fate of the Infidels Tied to the Buddhas?
By Janet Levy

One of the ancient Buddhas destroyed as 'idols'

"No fanfare and little notice marked the 10th anniversary earlier this year of the destruction of the 1,500-year-old Bamiyan Buddhas. These 6th-century stately statues carved into sandstone cliffs in central Afghanistan included one of the tallest standing Buddhas in the world. On March 12, 2001, the 180- and 121-foot Buddhas crumpled under dynamite set off by the Taliban -- the Islamist militia group ruling Afghanistan from 1996 through late 2001. Mullah Omar, the leader of the Al Qaeda-supported movement, deemed the statutes idolatrous graven images insulting to Islam and ordered their destruction. Other Buddhist images, including statues and relief carvings as well as ancient Sikh gurdwaras and Hindu temples, were also destroyed by the Islamic terrorists belonging to the Taliban Movement.

This kind of cultural destruction has been part and parcel of Islam since its inception. According to Dr. Bill Warner, founder of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, "Political Islam has annihilated every culture it has invaded or immigrated to by destroying the host culture."

Dr. Warner cites the extinction of a once-Christian Middle East, Turkey, and North Africa, and a Zoroastrian Persia, as a result of Islamic jihad. He also includes the decimation of Hindus and Buddhists as well. All told, he totals more than 270 million "nonbelievers," including Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Africans, and Jews, who have died in Islamic massacres since the birth of Islam 1400 years ago.

Prior to the Islamic conquests, which began in the 7th century, Afghanistan was primarily Hindu with significant minorities of Buddhists and Jains...

...By the 11th century, the region that includes modern-day Afghanistan had been Islamized and the remaining Hindus and Buddhists were stripped of their legal and social rights and relegated to dhimmi status. This meant they were required to exist under shariah or Islamic doctrine and forced to pay the jizya, a tax payable to Muslims to guarantee protection against forced conversion or death.

When the Taliban came to power in 1996, Hindu and Buddhist minorities were forced to identify themselves by wearing yellow badges and the women were required to wear burkas. The destruction of the Buddhas was yet another attempt to demoralize and humiliate Hindus and Buddhists and destroy their culture...

Read it all here

Understanding Sharia and Jihadist attitudes towards Buddhists
To put this cultural destruction in context, we need to remember that Islam, by its very nature, is obsessed with hatred against non-Muslims.

Islamic Sharia law states that non-Muslims must either be converted, or enslaved and humiliated as second-class citizens (dhimmis), or exterminated.

V. S. Naipaul, the Nobel prize-winning author, summed it up precisely in 'Beyond Belief', when he wrote:

"Hatred of non-Moslems is the pivot of Islamic existence. It not only declares all dissidents as the denizens of hell, but also seeks to ignite a permanent fire of tension between Moslems and non-Moslems; it is far more lethal than Karl Marx´s idea of social conflict which he hatched to keep his theory alive."

Christians and Jews are the only people eligible for dhimmi status, being allowed to live under Sharia laws provided they pay the extortionate jizya 'protection' money and suffer institutionalised humiliation uncomplainingly. However they may not build new places of worship nor repair existing ones.

Jews and Christians are classed as 'people of the book', and Islamic propagandists use this phrase to claim that Sharia treats them favorably by allowing them to live.

Buddhists are often given no such option. They are 'mushrikūn' (singular: mushrik) - idolators whose religion should not be tolerated in any form.

According to the strictest interpretations of Sharia, Buddhists must either convert to Islam or be exterminated, and their places of worship must be obliterated. It is therefore very much in Western Buddhists' interests to resist the creeping Sharia that is slowly being imposed on the United States and Europe, even if this involves getting more involved in politics than many of us would like, and making some unusual alliances.

Why dhimmis and mushrikūn must ally against Sharia (from Jihad watch)

'Dhimmitude is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, "protected people," are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur'an's command that they "feel themselves subdued" (Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, are part of the legal superstructure that global jihadists are laboring to restore everywhere in the Islamic world, and wish ultimately to impose on the entire human race.

If dhimmis complained about their inferior status, institutionalized humiliation, or poverty, their masters voided their contract and regarded them as enemies of Islam, fair game as objects of violence. Consequently, dhimmis were generally cowed into silence and worse. It was almost unheard-of to find dhimmis speaking out against their oppressors; to do so would have been suicide. For centuries dhimmi communities in the Islamic world learned to live in peace with their Muslim overlords by acquiescing to their subservience. Some even actively identified with the dominant class, and became strenuous advocates for it.

Spearheaded by dhimmi academics and self-serving advocacy groups, that same attitude of chastened subservience has entered into Western academic study of Islam, and from there into journalism, school textbooks, and the popular discourse. One must not point out the depredations of jihad and dhimmitude; to do so would offend the multiculturalist ethos that prevails everywhere today. To do so would endanger chances for peace and rapprochement between civilizations all too ready to clash.

But in this era of global terrorism it must be said: this silence, this distortion, has become deadly. Before 9/11 it was easy to ignore and whitewash dhimmitude, but the atrocities changed the situation forever. In jihads throughout history, untold millions have died. Tens of millions have been uprooted from their homes. Tens of millions have been stripped of their cultural identity. To continue to gloss over the destruction wrought by jihad ideology and its attendant evil of dhimmitude is today to play into the hands of jihadists, who have repeatedly vowed to dhimmify the West and destroy any recalcitrant elements.

While jihadist groups, even with their global diffusion, are not strong enough to realize this goal by themselves, they have a potent and destructive ally, a genuine fifth column, in the dhimmi academics and dhimmi journalists they have recruited in the West. They have succeeded in confusing millions in the West into mistaking honesty and truthfulness for bigotry, and self-defense for oppression"

++++

The Fate of the Infidels

Gouging and disembowelment

"There is no liquid loved by Allah more than the liquid of blood. Whether you do it by the lamb, or you do it by a Serb, you do it by a Jew, you do it by any enemies of Allah, that drop of blood is very dear."- Islamic Sermon

Metarationalism versus Irrationalism in Religion

2011-06-19T14:46:00.000-07:00


Metarationality - the mental landscape beyond the end of the tracks

From Rational Buddhism:

'Metarationality deals with valid phenomena which lie beyond the limits of discursive thought. Qualia are prime examples, and much meditational practice deals with the deliberate invocation of qualia.

Also, some types of meditation seek to go beyond conceptual thought in order to reach nonconceptual awareness.

Other metarational phenomena are those paradoxes that lie at, or just beyond, the limits of logical thought, and which have been investigated by Buddhist philosophers such a Nagarjuna.

According to Hume, the entire field of ethics may be metarational, since reasoned and logical arguments are incapable of going from an 'is' to an 'ought'. Ethics cannot be rationally derived either from knowledge based on logic and definitions, or from observation.

The difference between metarationality and irrationality, is that with metarationality you attempt to explore the landscape beyond the end of the tracks of logical thought, whereas with irrationality you come off the rails long before you reach the end of the line.

Irrationality - coming off the track before you reach the end of the line

Buddhist philosophy is rational until it reaches the limits of logic, wherupon it goes metarational, whereas some religions are just plain irrational from the very start of the journey.

More here

A Glimpse of Non-conceptual Awareness

2011-06-19T04:02:00.000-07:00

Jim recently left this comment at an old post on Inherent Existence . Rather than leave it in the obscurity of the archives, I thought it was sufficiently interesting to repost here...

"Inherent Existence" as a concept does not inherently exist. So when you try to pin down the definition of the *concept* of inherent existence, you can't come up with a "clean, clear" definition.

Garfield's translation of Nagarjuna's Mulamadyhamakakarika (Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way) posits the equivalence of "empty of inherent existence", "dependently originated" and "conceptually designated".

I like the shorthand of "no essence" for "empty of inherent existence". That helps me understand, when I perceive at any phenomenon that there is in no way any particle, energy, quality or category exists as an essence, a standalone existent in that phenomenon. That then leads to "dependently originated", meaning that the phenomenon appears before my perceptions due to an endlessly divisible network of elements and causes. Then "conceptually designated" tells me that principle among those elements and causes is my being here to cast a (perhaps sub or unconscious) conceptual designation onto that "thing", delineating it in space and time as "separate and distinct" in the network.

This puts me on the doorstep of "what is producing the conceptual designation", which points to the concept of a self. That becomes the next target of analysis, as in "no essence to this self", "this self is dependently originated", "this self is conceptually designated". These taken together point to to the "conceptual designator" in the self, the "model of self" in the self and the "observing awareness" in the self. These become the next targets of the three-part "emptiness analysis" described above.

This can be repeated again, and again, and again, until the neuro-pschological nexus of model of self, conceptualizing engine, and observing awareness is sufficiently weakened that there's a break in the conceptualizing, and a glimpse of non-conceptual awareness. I find that this gets more effective the more it is practiced.

+++

Regarding the opening statement "Inherent Existence" as a concept does not inherently exist", and the reference to Garfield, see Nagarjuna and the Limits of Thought by Jay L. Garfield and Graham Priest.

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Is Richard Dawkins a Buddhist?

2011-06-19T02:30:00.000-07:00

"Anyone who accepts these four seals, even independently of Buddha’s teachings, even never having heard the name Shakyamuni Buddha, can be considered to be on the same path as he."
- Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

According to the fundamental tenets of Buddhism, all phenomena derive their existence from causes, structures and mental designation. They do not have any defining essence, or inherently existing nature that determines what they are from within themselves. Ultimately, their identity resides solely in the arbitrary judgement of the observer.

In Buddhist philosophy, most teachings on the of lack of inherent existence and absence of essential nature refer to non-living structures. Milinda's Chariot is the classical example. However, our modern knowledge of evolution allows us to apply the same line of reasoning to living creatures, in particular refuting the reification of the species. The best illustration of Buddhist teachings on lack of inherent existence of the species is the essay 'Gaps in the Mind' by Richard Dawkins:

The discontinuous mind.
"...We would all agree that a six-foot woman is tall, and a five-foot woman is not. Words like 'tall' and 'short' tempt us to force the world into qualitative classes, but this doesn't mean that the world really is discontinuously distributed. Were you to tell me that a woman is five feet nine inches tall, and ask me to decide whether she should therefore be called tall or not, I'd shrug and say 'She's five foot nine, doesn't that tell you what you need to know?' But the discontinuous mind, to caricature it a little, would go to court (probably at great expense) to decide whether the woman was tall or short. Indeed, I hardly need to say caricature. For years, South African courts have done a brisk trade adjudicating whether particular individuals of mixed parentage count as white, black or coloured.

The discontinuous mind is ubiquitous. It is especially influential when it afflicts lawyers and the religious (not only are all judges lawyers; a high proportion of politicians are too, and all politicians have to woo the religious vote). Recently, after giving a public lecture, I was cross-examined by a lawyer in the audience. He brought the full weight of his legal acumen to bear on a nice point of evolution. If species A evolves into a later species B, he reasoned closely, there must come a point when a mother belongs to the old species A and her child belongs to the new species B. Members of different species cannot interbreed with one another. I put it to you, he went on, that a child could hardly be so different from its parents that it could not interbreed with their kind. So, he wound up triumphantly, isn't this a fatal flaw in the theory of evolution?

Mental designation
But it is we that choose to divide animals up into discontinuous species. On the evolutionary view of life there must have been intermediates, even though, conveniently for our naming rituals, they are usually extinct: usually, but not always. The lawyer would be surprised and, I hope, intrigued by so-called 'ring species'. The best-known case is herring gull versus lesser black-backed gull.

In Britain these are clearly distinct species, quite different in colour. Anybody can tell them apart. But if you follow the population of herring gulls westward round the North Pole to North America, then via Alaska across Siberia and back to Europe again, you will notice a curious fact. The 'herring gulls' gradually become less and less like herring gulls and more and more like lesser black-backed gulls until it turns out that our European lesser black-backed gulls actually are the other end of a ring that started out as herring gulls.

At every stage around the ring, the birds are sufficiently similar to their neighbours to interbreed with them. Until, that is, the ends of the continuum are reached, in Europe. At this point the herring gull and the lesser black-backed gull never interbreed, although they are linked by a continuous series of interbreeding colleagues all the way round the world. The only thing that is special about ring species like these gulls is that the intermediates are still alive. All pairs of related species are potentially ring species. The intermediates must have lived once. It is just that in most cases they are now dead.

Arbitrary Designation
The lawyer, with his trained discontinuous mind, insists on placing individuals firmly in this species or that. He does not allow for the possibility that an individual might lie half-way between two species, or a tenth of the way from species A to species B...

Artificial categories
...The word 'apes' usually means chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans, gibbons and siamangs. We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realise that we are apes. Our common ancestor with the chimpanzees and gorillas is much more recent than their common ancestor with the Asian apes — the gibbons and orang-utans. There is no natural category that includes chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans but excludes humans. The artificiality of the category 'apes', as conventionally taken to exclude humans, is demonstrated by Figure 7.1. This family tree shows humans to be in the thick of the ape cluster; the artificiality of the conventional category 'ape' is shown by the stippling.

Figure 7.1

In truth, not only are we apes, we are African apes. The category 'African apes', if you don't arbitrarily exclude humans, is a natural one. The stippled area in Figure 7.2 doesn't have any artificial 'bites' taken out of it.

Figure 7.2

'Great apes', too, is a natural category only so long as it includes humans. We are great apes. All the great apes that have ever lived including ourselves, are linked to one another by an unbroken chain of parent-child bonds. The same is true of all animals and plants that have ever lived, but there the distances involved are much greater. Molecular evidence suggests that our common ancestor with chimpanzees lived, in Africa, between five and seven million years ago, say half a million generations ago. This is not long by evolutionary standards.

No essential differences between species
Happenings are sometimes organised at which thousands of people hold hands and form a human chain, say from coast to coast of the United States, in aid of some cause or charity. Let us imagine setting one up along the equator, across the width of our home continent of Africa. It is a special kind of chain, involving parents and children, and we will have to play tricks with time in order to imagine it. You stand on the shore of the Indian Ocean in southern Somalia, facing north, and in your left hand you hold the right hand of your mother. In turn she holds the hand of her mother, your grandmother. Your grandmother holds her mother's hand, and so on. The chain wends its way up the beach, into the arid scrubland and westwards on towards the Kenya border.

How far do we have to go until we reach our common ancestor with the chimpanzees? It is a surprisingly short way. Allowing one yard per person, we arrive at the ancestor we share with chimpanzees in under 300 miles. We have hardly started to cross the continent; we are still not half way to the Great Rift Valley. The ancestor is standing well to the east of Mount Kenya, and holding in her hand an entire chain of her lineal descendants, culminating in you standing on the Somali beach.

The daughter that she is holding in her right hand is the one from whom we are descended. Now the arch-ancestress turns eastward to face the coast, and with her left hand grasps her other daughter, the one from whom the chimpanzees are descended (or son, of course, but let's stick to females for convenience). The two sisters are facing one another, and each holding their mother by the hand. Now the second daughter, the chimpanzee ancestress, holds her daughter's hand, and a new chain is formed, proceeding back towards the coast. First cousin faces first cousin, second cousin faces second cousin, and so on.

By the time the folded-back chain has reached the coast again, it consists of modern chimpanzees. You are face to face with your chimpanzee cousin, and you are joined to her by an unbroken chain of mothers holding hands with daughters. If you walked up the line like an inspecting general -past Homo erectus, Homo habilis, perhaps Australopithecus afarensis -and down again the other side (the intermediates on the chimpanzee side are unnamed because, as it happens, no fossils have been found), you would nowhere find any sharp discontinuity. Daughters would resemble mothers just as much (or as little) as they always do. Mothers would love daughters, and feel affinity with them, just as they always And this hand-in-hand continuum, joining us seamlessly to chimpanzees, is so short that it barely makes it past the hinterland of Africa, the mother continent.

Our chain of African apes, doubling back on itself, is in miniature like the ring of gulls round the pole, except that the intermediates happen to be dead. The point I want to make is that, as far as morality is concerned, it should be incidental that the intermediates are dead. What if they were not? What if a clutch of intermediate types had survived, enough to link us to modern chimpanzees by a chain, not just of hand-holders, but of interbreeders? Remember the song, 'I've danced with a man, who's danced with a girl, who's danced with the Prince of Wales'? We can't (quite) interbreed with modern chimpanzees, but we'd need only a handful of intermediate types to be able to sing: 'I've bred with a man, who's bred with a girl, who's bred with a chimpanzee.'

Moral dilemmas
It is sheer luck that this handful of intermediates no longer exists. ('Luck' from some points of view: for myself, I should love to meet them.) But for this chance, our laws and our morals would be very different. We need only discover a single survivor, say a relict Australopithecus in the Budongo Forest, and our precious system of norms and ethics would come crashing about our ears. The boundaries with which we segregate our world would be all shot to pieces. Racism would blur with speciesism in obdurate and vicious confusion. Apartheid, for those that believe in it, would assume a new and perhaps a more urgent import.

But why, a moral philosopher might ask, should this matter to us? Isn't it only the discontinuous mind that wants to erect barriers anyway? So what if, in the continuum of all apes that have lived in Africa, the survivors happen to leave a convenient gap between Homo and Pan? Surely we should, in any case, not base our treatment of animals on whether or not we can interbreed with them. If we want to justify double standards - if society agrees that people should be treated better than, say, cows (cows may be cooked and eaten, people may not) - there must be better reasons than cousinship. Humans may be taxonomically distant from cows, but isn't it more important that we are brainier? Or better, following Jeremy Bentham, that humans can suffer more - that cows, even if they hate pain as much as humans do (and why on earth should we suppose otherwise?), do not know what is coming to them? Suppose that the octopus lineage had happened to evolve brains and feelings to rival ours; they easily might have done. The mere possibility shows the incidental nature of cousinship. So, the moral philosopher asks, why emphasise the human/chimp continuity?

Yes, in an ideal world we probably should come up with a better reason than cousinship for, say, preferring carnivory to cannibalism. But the melancholy fact is that, at present, society's moral attitudes rest almost entirely on the discontinuous, speciesist imperative.

Figure 7.3 Hypothetical computer-generated image of what an intermediate between a human and a chimpanzee face might look like. (After Nancy Burston and David Kramlich, from C. A. Pickover, Computers and the Imagination: Visual Adventures Beyond the Edge (Alan Sutton, Stroud, 1991).)

This arresting picture is hypothetical. But I can assert, without fear of contradiction, that if somebody succeeded in breeding a chimpanzee/ human hybrid the news would be earth-shattering. Bishops would bleat, lawyers would gloat in anticipation, conservative politicians would thunder, socialists wouldn't know where to put their barricades. The scientist that achieved the feat would be drummed out of politically correct common-rooms; denounced in pulpit and gutter press; condemned, perhaps, by an Ayatollah's fatwah. Politics would never be the same again, nor would theology, sociology, psychology or most branches of philosophy. The world that would be so shaken, by such an incidental event as a hybridisation, is a speciesist world indeed, dominated by the discontinuous mind.

I have argued that the discontinuous gap between humans and ‘apes’ that we erect in our minds is regrettable. I have also argued that, in any case, the present position of the hallowed gap is arbitrary, the result of evolutionary accident. If the contingencies of survival and extinction had been different, the gap would be in a different place. Ethical principles that are based upon accidental caprice should not be respected as if cast in stone.

Nevertheless, it must be conceded that this book's proposal to admit great apes to the charmed circle of human privilege stands square in the discontinuous tradition. Albeit the gap has moved, the fundamental question is still 'Which side of the gap?' Regrettable as this is, as long as our social mores are governed by discontinuously minded lawyers and theologians, it is premature to advocate a quantitative, continuously distributed morality. Accordingly, I support the proposal for which this book stands."

So is Richard Dawkins a Buddhist?
So is Richard Dawkins a Buddhist without perhaps realising it? According to Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, acceptance of the Four Seals -

Lack of Essence or Inherent Existence of Functioning Phenomena
Impermanence of Functioning Phenomena
Inevitability of Samsaric Suffering
The True Nature of the Mind

- makes one a (minimalist) Buddhist.

Dawkins shows an excellent understanding of Lack of Inherent existence in the essay quoted, and as a Darwinist he is obviously well aware of the related seal of Impermance.

Samsara's pleasures are deceptive, bring no contentment only torment
He also shows an awareness of the third seal, the inevitable nature of Samsaric suffering, in the following quote from River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored."

The True Nature of the Mind
Dawkins also understands the way that delusions afflict the mind,and how these can be transcended:

''We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators." See further discussion at Accepting our Evolutionary History does not Mean Rejecting our Spirituality .

Nearly but not quite
Where Richard Dawkins differs from Buddhism is that he appears to accept the default physicalist view of the mind. The difference between the Buddhist and the physicalist (materialist) view of reality can be stated quite simply:

The Buddhist believes that all functioning phenomena are dependent upon
- Causality
- Structure
- Designation by mind

The physicalist believes that all functioning phenomena are dependent upon
- Causality
- Structure
...with the mind being reducible to the operations of causality on structure in the same way that the activities of a computer are reducible to the operation of algorithms on datastructures.

To the Buddhist, in contrast, the mind is an irreducible foundation of reality.

See All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace - The Monkey in the Machine and the Machine in the Monkey for a detailed discussion of this topic.

Convergence
Although Richard Dawkins is not quite a Buddhist, his philosophy, derived by completely independent reasoning and within a non-Buddhist culture and intellectual environment, comes very close indeed to the four fundamental tenets of Buddhism.

This convergence has also been note by Buddhist commentator Ed Halliwell:

Dawkins strips away religion's dead wood
"Dawkins is doing religion a favour – by exposing faith and spirituality to criticism, he paves the way for their renewal.

"I doubt it was his intention, but in 100 years time Richard Dawkins could be hailed as a prime architect of 21st-century religion. Though strident to the point of comic fundamentalism, the New Atheist diatribe has not only laid bare the irrationalities of believers, but forced those of us who favour scientific-spiritual accommodation to sharpen our arguments. And that can only aid the development of spiritual forms fit for the modern world.

When I first picked up The God Delusion, I was a bit disappointed to find it was rather polite about my own tradition. Right up there in chapter one, Dawkins sensibly suggests that Buddhism might be seen as an ethical or philosophical system rather than a religion, and so not a major focus for his ire. We've got off lightly from other anti-religionists too – Sam Harris even goes on Buddhist meditation retreats.

The International Buddhist Film Festival, which opened in London last week, has at least provoked a bit of poking at our flabby underbelly. On Radio 3, Martin Palmer accused western Buddhists of creating their own version based on "the religion we don't want, which is Judeo-Christian, and the religion we would love to have, which isn't quite religion, which … doesn't have too many rules, and the rules it does have, like the Tibetan ban on homosexuality, are conveniently forgotten." Mark Vernon, relaying Palmer's comments on his blog, agreed, describing western Buddhism as "deeply partial, a pick 'n' mix religion". Their criticisms would appear to be supported by a glance at the IBFF schedule, which includes films – such as Donnie Darko and Hamlet – for which the label Buddhist seems pretty tenuous.

But Buddhism has always changed shape according to place and time. Impermanence, as one of the three marks of existence, must apply also to Buddhism itself. It accepts, even demands, that every culture must find its own unique expressions of awakening. To prevent them becoming pieces of stale ideology, its discoveries must be tested anew by each practitioner, rather than being swallowed from scripture. Whenever Buddhism is embraced in a new location, it has mixed with pre-existing wisdom – hence, for example, why Zen looks so different from Tibetan Vajrayana.

In Buddhism there should be no room for dogma – the ultimate criteria for performing an action is its role in alleviating the suffering of oneself and others. A course of action could reduce suffering in one circumstance and magnify it in another, so the rules are there to be broken and the traditions are there to be changed, provided, of course, you can do it skilfully. When asked to sum up the essence of Buddhism, Japanese teacher Shunyru Susuki replied "Not always so". The pliability of the teachings means that mistakes can be learned from, and culturally created doctrines or codes of behaviour that are unwise, outdated or harmful – the aforementioned approach to homosexuality for example – can be freely consigned to the bin.

Does that make western Buddhism a pick 'n' mix religion? Perhaps it does – but if we pick and mix well, we might create something good. Indeed, if we pick wise insights from the past and mix them with the ever-accumulating knowledge from our own cultural heritage, then what we might have a viable model for 21st-century spirituality. It needn't even be called Buddhism, which is, after all, just a word.

As a path that simultaneously emphasises both constant change and a relentless search for truth, perhaps Buddhism is in a good position to develop more mature forms. However, the rational onslaught must inevitably spur other traditions to self-question and adapt too. And this is where Richard Dawkins may well be one of religion's greatest allies. The old code that sacred beliefs cannot be challenged for fear of causing offence has been shattered – and it needed shattering. If the sacred dimension just means articles of faith that provoke outrage when assaulted, then religion and the religious would be better off without them. Dawkins and his ilk may have their sights trained on eliminating religion, but what they are actually doing is exposing its dead wood, the anachronisms that have been protected from critical thinking, and that needed cutting away.

Claims to special privilege in society, indoctrination of belief as fact, repressive or violent acts as a means of evangelism, and the upholding of outdated worldviews on scriptural grounds – all these and many other examples of the misuse of spiritual traditions do them no favours and should be dropped. If that is pick 'n' mix religion, can I be first in the queue at the sweet counter?"

Hinduism and Buddhism offer much more sophisticated worldviews (or philosophies) and I see nothing wrong with these religions. - The Richard Dawkins Foundation

Comment by Yinyangnature:
"Why does Professor Dawkins claim Hinduism and Buddhism offer much more sophisticated world-views? I believe it is due to the fundamental differences that are found when comparing Western religions with those of Asia.

The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) model the cosmos on the politics of the ancient Middle East. God is viewed as a monarch who rules and controls everything. Just as a tyrant king of this period, God is able to severely punish or reward his subjects as he sees fit.

The Dharmic religions (Buddhism, Zen, Taoism and Hinduism) don't see the cosmos as something that is responding to a ruler or controller. They believe the Universe is a self perpetuating unity.

The Western faiths also repel and distance themselves from Nature. Whereas the Asian philosophies are firmly rooted in the natural world and see all of Nature as divine.

Unquestioning faith is paramount in the Abrahamic religions and everything else is seen as secondary to the holy dogma. Yet in the Asian religions the very opposite is true. Acts of compassion are always foremost and adherents are free to believe whatever they choose. Buddha is quoted as saying "Do not believe anything unless it agrees with your own experiences and common sense; even if it is said to have come from me."

Conclusion
Although Richard Dawkins may be unlikely to go for refuge to the Three Jewels anytime soon, his worldview shows a strong 'convergent evolution' towards Buddhist philosophy. The major difference would seem to be the nature of the mind.

In Buddhist philosophy the mind is not reducible to physical causality and structure, but is a fundamental foundation of reality. Since he hasn't, to my knowledge, stated otherwise, I would guess that Richard Dawkins holds the scientifically orthodox physicalist/computationalist point of view.

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Buddhism encourages envy, theft and backwardness, according to Professor of Islamic Thought

2011-06-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

Jealousy's Final Solution
by Hans Jansen

'Why is it that large parts of the so-called Third World appear to be lost beyond rescue? It is because most people over there cling to a familiar theory about the way of the world. It concerns the quite natural conviction that riches can be gathered by taking from your fellow men; and right they are. Taking from others can make you rich without too much trouble. The only thing in demand is a little touch, or threat, of violence.

In developing countries, it is commonly believed that besides taking, there are no other means towards a state of ownership. For those aspiring to get rich in the Third World, that is a basic fact of life. Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are Third World religions. Those who are born and raised in these cultural spheres know what becoming rich entails. It means successfully taking the other’s share.

Some Westerners, on their part, also occasionally suffer from the feeling that the main road to prosperity is through taking. At the kindergarten playground, that was clearly the case. Whenever in need of a toy shovel, one had only to take it from a fellow shrimp. Braving the sandbox with your own self-made spade was not an option.

Though the basic attitude seems childish, some in the West have congregated into groups, united in their belief that this kind of taking is the only route to riches. Evidently, this is not the only option open to Westerners, yet many otherwise fair-minded individuals believe that anyone who possesses more than others must have arrived at that point by taking, that is, through some kind of robbery or theft. Consequently, the kindergarten board is heartily invited to redistribute the loot among the weak and oppressed, by force, if need be. This primary wisdom, acquired at kindergarten level, makes it hard to benefit from the time-honored advice of seasoned economists, that wealth is created when each and every one of us is left in the undisturbed possession and enjoyment of the fruits of one's own labor.

Redistribution, however, features high on the priority-lists of policymakers in service of the state. It creates a rising tide of nannyism that sweeps the empowered masses from one bureaucratic institution to another. Social work, social housing, welfare offices, social justice, youth care, rehab and resettlement are all entangled in a noble competition, to help the "client", for sure, but also to be the first to have redirected him to the institution, most suited to his rightful claim to state-sponsored assistance. The opinion that meddling by or on behalf of the state is not only inefficient but also not entirely proper, has become viewed as being more and more eccentric. The common sense of old, that the bulk of that support owes much, if not all, to denying others the fruits of their labor, has gained the crude freshness of a new insight.

State meddling has taken great leaps forward among all of the free Western nations. Some sectors of private enterprise not withstanding, all branches of society are managed through government, one way or the other. There are practically no areas left where the State does not have the final say. And for sure, there's a lot of meddling to be done, preferably by interchangeable CEOs and politicians, hovering between interlinking branches of society, like birds of a feather. Professional nannies at every level, be they administrators, judges, bank managers, social workers, executives or journalists, are bound by a shared preference for parties and special interest groups that nurse the habit of meddling. Needless to say that the classes who are privileged to "empowerment" follow in their wake. There is little surprise in the dream team merger of ideologies, trumping a Third World Order and Western nanny state interventionism.

That there may be individuals and societies who have only themselves to thank for their wealth, managing to pull it off without taking from anyone for the creation of those riches, is beyond the belief of the professional First- and Third-World nannies. This option must remain far removed from their calculations, because the income generated by professional nannies stems from their noble support for the "disenfranchised", cut off from sources of wealth that they consider to be illegitimate in the first place. Their bread and butter, and even their identity as professional saviours, could be jeopardized if affluence proved to be possible without harming anyone, by allowing, for instance, more freedom and a tad bit more modest yet proper administration.

Split societies like those on the island of Cyprus or between Malaysia and Singapore may provide some illustration. Ever since the split-up, one part does well while the other doesn't. The primary difference is between the ideology and the social order in these newly formed states that where considered to be one before the separation. Nothing could be found in today's Greek/Turkish Cyprus and Singapore/Malaysia that might serve to explain the vast difference in both the standard of living and well-being between these now separated political entities - other than the mentality of their respective inhabitants. In places that prosper, people usually haven't suffered from too much confiscation. On the other hand, in the areas that don't do well, taking has become a daily routine.

The belief that taking is the only source of wealth, is a common error of judgment and perception, reducing the rich and complex sphere of economic reality and human action to a zero-sum game. This misperception generates a long chain of political consequences and policy decisions, starting with all of these fashionable forms of redistribution. The relative difference, however, in standards of living and well-being between places where no other explanation presents itself besides cultural differences, shows one thing rather convincingly: that prosperity depends on the way a society runs itself and that, in turn, is determined by culture, religion and ideology.

And yet, in countries like the Netherlands, political movements based on envy, nannyism and resentment seem to be doing just fine. These political movements are often in collusion with like-minded foreign ideologies and religions. In Western countries, the existence and political power of a steadily growing constituency of voters who hate and despise the ostensibly wicked West cannot be ignored any longer.

But much to their chagrin, the facts of life prove to be uncooperative once again. It is no accident that the West became prosperous by opting for a society that enabled freedom, competition, technology, truly civil service (at least in theory, if not in practice), self-reliance, debate and a high standard of living. Ideologies that carry the most currency in third world countries teach otherwise, to wit: that the prosperity of the West is testimony to their unbecoming behavior towards Third World nations, and that therefore, the West needs to be fought. Reparations! Down with freedom! Away with all things Western! It would be surprising if these sentiments hadn’t received such a warm welcome among like-minded movements and organizations in the West.

The choice for a society based on envy, hate and jealousy, combined with a public ban on freedom and competition will create something like Pakistan, a nation getting poorer by the day. A choice based on a free market, free competition, on freedom of religion and other civil liberties, will create nations akin to Taiwan or South-Korea - nations where prosperity is steadily growing while sixty years ago they where in as much of a miserable state as Pakistan and Ghana are today.

Both in the West and the Third World, the Khmer watermelons, Red and Green, have happily joined hands with Third-Worlders, in an attempt to destroy the vestiges of freedom that still survive today. All of this follows from their desire to usher in a new society for a New Man – their ennobled Modern Savage. The biggest compliment one could pay these attempts at starving off jealousy, is to say that here’s a man who will definitely never be the envy of anyone, anymore.'

Hans Jansen is a scholar of Islam and former Professor of Modern Islamic Thought at the University of Utrecht. He writes from the Netherlands.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/06/hans-jansen-jealousys-final-solution.html

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2011-06-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

Sodom and Gomorrah

Following on from the previous post, is it possible for the Abrahamic religions ever to accept people with 'non-Biblical' sexual orientations? Is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah always going to be a background narrative?

But while the Abrahamics seeth with homophobic hatred resulting in doctrinal and physical queer-bashing, there is fortunately one spiritual tradition that 'doesn't fault gay sex or gay people in any way whatsoever.'

From The Bay Area Reporter
'In the crowd of streetwise San Franciscans lining up for needle exchange, he stands out: a 52-year-old gay Buddhist monk, lean and sinewy in his bright yellow and red robes, chatting amicably with the men and women in line while swapping clean syringes for the dirty ones he collects.

His name is Tekchog, and he knows firsthand what it's like to need a clean needle. Before he was Tekchog, he was David Ruch, a gay man living in the Castro, addicted to crystal meth and having unsafe sex with a partner who shot speed. But that, it seems, was a lifetime ago; before protease, before he found Buddhism, before his lover died. And every Tuesday night for the past eight years, "come rain or shine or earthquake," as he puts it, he's been here, behind the Market Street Safeway, handing out needles to stem the tide of HIV.
"Heroin and speed users don't take holidays," he said, packing away bins of syringes that will later be incinerated by the city. "They depend on us to be here. And everyone I know knows that on Tuesday nights, this is where I am."

Soon enough, Tekchog's Wednesday nights will also be spoken for. Starting January 4, he'll be teaching introductory meditation classes at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center as part of his temple's outreach to the gay community. "The classes are an opportunity to develop your mind and become happy," he said with a sly grin.

Has it worked for him? Is this celibate gay monk living in the Castro any happier than the rest of us? The story he tells, like the stories of many who have weathered drug abuse, illness, and loss in gay San Francisco these past two decades, is replete with heartbreak. But Tekchog is animated in the telling, his bright blue eyes flashing. "Happiness is all in the mind," he said.

Coming out

Not realizing he was gay, Ruch was married in 1980 and lived with his wife, Linda, in a pastoral Idaho town while pursuing a Ph.D. in biochemistry. In 1982 Linda got pregnant, but six months into the pregnancy was diagnosed with ovarian cancer; she had a massive tumor the size of her fetus. After three grueling months of chemotherapy, she delivered a healthy baby girl, Erin. Two months later, in January 1983, Linda died.
Shell shocked, Ruch stayed in Idaho to finish his Ph.D. After a long mourning, he began experimenting with men, eventually falling in love with one of his male students. The two had a commitment ceremony and, with Erin, moved to a new life in San Francisco. The city's banquet of available men, casual sex, and crystal meth, however, proved too enticing for the couple. "It didn't take us long, living in this candy store, to break up," Tekchog said.
His next partner, a younger man, had a serious speed habit. "I thought I was going to help him. Instead, I got addicted," he said.

Crystal meth is an all-consuming beast, and the descent into its clutches is most often marked with loss ? of health, home, self-respect, employment. Ruch and his partner were no exception. His partner shot speed. Clean needles were nowhere to be found. They had sex without condoms. Before long, when a colleague found speed on his laboratory bench, Ruch lost his high-paying research job. "I started washing dishes at Orphan Andy's, even though I had a Ph.D. And I was still doing speed," he said, with unmistakable regret.
On April Fools' Day, 1995, the other shoe dropped. He tested HIV-positive and, he said, realized his life was careening toward disaster. In desperation, he turned to the AIDS Health Project.

"The first thing I had to do was break up with my partner, otherwise him, me, and my daughter were all going down the toilet." He ended the relationship, stopped using speed, and found a full-time job at the San Francisco AIDS Office, a position he still holds today.

Spiritual life

Clear-headed for the first time in years, he saw, on a distant horizon, the possibility of a spiritual life. "I was looking for ways to control my mind, and everything I picked up pointed me toward mediation and Buddhism." He found an introductory mediation class, the kind he now teaches, offered by the temple that would later ordain him. He loved it, never missed a class, and had soon immersed himself in an earnest study of Buddhist teachings.

Objects of Refuge

A refuge for queer people
Tekchog is quick to point out that, despite a now infamous condemnation of homosexuality by the Dali Lama in 1997, Buddhism is indeed a refuge for queer people. "It's a religion that doesn't fault gay sex or gay people in any way whatsoever." And the Dali Lama's comment? "Unmitigated bull," Tekchog said, "and not backed up by Buddhist scripture."

After years of ardent study, he felt called to still deeper spiritual practices. "I wanted to control my mind and become a Buddha in this life." The only way to do that, he said, was to take the vow of celibacy and become a monk. He was ordained in 2000, given his new name (pronounced like it's spelled, TEK-chog), which means "supreme vehicle," and has worn his robes ever since.

But "monk," as Tekchog lives it, does not entail sleeping in a bare cell with no possessions and meditating alone all day. He leads, instead, a deeply engaged life. Besides his AIDS Office job and volunteering at needle exchange, he also runs the North American Buddhism in Prison Project, corresponding with some 500 prison inmates who are interested in meditation and Buddhism. He manages the entire program himself from a tiny office in the Castro apartment he shares with Erin, now 22. She's working on her bachelor's degree in photography and filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Tekchog approaches the prison project and needle exchange with a disarming lack of judgment, viewing himself as a servant to other beings who, with any luck, will also find their path to happiness and, ultimately, enlightenment.

"Being happy is a state of mind," Tekchog said. "If you have control over your mind, you can control whether or not you're happy. It's as simple as that."

Introductory meditation classes begin Wednesday January 4, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street. Classes are free and open to all. For more information, visit the Kadampa Buddhist Center, 3324 17th Street. Phone: (415) 503-1197. Or visit www.Kadampas.org. '

The Abrahamic Tradition

From http://www.butler.edu/faith-vocation/explore-indy-religion/buddhism/dromtonpa-buddhism/

"...Bruce was drawn to Buddhism for a plethora of reasons. One of the main emphases of Vajrayana Buddhism is compassion. Another aspect of Buddhist teachings that Bruce found appealing is its views about "sin". According to Buddhist teachings, Bruce said, there should be no sense of guilt because we all naturally transgress. Another important factor, and possibly the factor that sealed the deal, for Bruce, was the fact that his homosexuality was not a problem for local Buddhists. As a gay man, Bruce wanted to be a part of a religion that would validate him as a person. Geshe Kelsang, the spiritual head of the Dromtonpa Kadampa Buddhist Center, does not regard homosexuality as misconduct. His teachings do not treat gays and lesbians as inferior in any way. Scott said that he experienced more acceptance of his sexual orientation in Buddhism than he had in either Catholicism or the Baha'i faith..."

+++

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East London Mosque Identified as Epicenter of Homophobic 'Street Jihad'

2011-06-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

Quranic Queer Bashing

Update in this morning's Guardian on the previous post - Buddhist, Jew, Darwin and Gay Free Zones in Islamic Britain

'Gay rights campaigners have urged mosque leaders in east London to ban homophobic clerics from using their premises, following a 21% rise in gay hate crime in the area.

Activists, including journalist Julie Bindel and Pride trustee Colm Howard-Lloyd, said some preachers at the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre had "created an atmosphere in which hate is socially acceptable; they have spread a message in which maiming and violence is the most dutiful, honourable, devout thing to do".

Their concerns follow the £100 fine given to Mohammed Hasnath, who put up "Gay-Free Zone" stickers in the area; the case of Oliver Hemsley, who was paralysed from the neck down in August 2008 following a vicious attack; and Metropolitan police figures showing that gay hate crime had risen in the borough of Tower Hamlets – where the mosque and adjoining centre are located – from 67 attacks to 81 in a year.

In a statement, the campaigners said that while the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre had distanced themselves from the sticker campaign, they had "hosted numerous hate preachers who have promoted the most vicious homophobia imaginable over the years".

"The East London Mosque claims to have no responsibility over those who speak there. The East London Mosque also claims to be opposed to the 'gay-free zone' campaign and homophobia. We demand that the East London Mosque live up to its stated word, take ownership of its platform and stop allowing its premises to be used to promote gay-hate campaigns.'

Lies, Damned Lies, and Taqiyya
The Mosque is in denial, though this likely to be taqiyya for public relations purposes, as the Mosque has something of a reputation for being economical with the truth.

Homophobic Street Jihad
Of course kuffars entering sensitive urban zones in Europe have long suffered from the risk of unprovoked 'street jihad' attacks, there is no doubt that although many of these are simple random attacks against any vulnerable infidel, there is nevertheless a particular animosity against gays, and people merely perceived to be gay (encouraged by the Spot the Fag contest).

How to Spot a Fag - East London Mosque Sermon

Orchestrated mob of street-jihadists attacks gay bar
"...Last year, a mob of 30 young Muslims stormed a local gay pub, the George and Dragon, beating and abusing patrons. Many customers of the pub told The Sunday Telegraph that they have been attacked and harassed by local Muslim youths. In 2008 a 20-year-old student, Oli Hemsley, was left permanently paralysed after an attack by a group of young Muslims outside the pub. Only one of his assailants has been caught and jailed.

Even during meetings of the local council, prominent supporters of Tower Hamlets’ controversial directly-elected mayor, Lutfur Rahman – dropped by the Labour Party for his links to Islamic fundamentalism - have persistently targeted gay councillors with homophobic abuse and intimidation from the public gallery.

The Labour leader, Josh Peck, was attacked with animal noises and cries of “Unnatural acts! Unnatural acts!” when he rose to speak. The Conservative leader, Peter Golds, was repeatedly heckled as “Mrs Golds” and a “poofter”.

Mr Golds said: “If that happened in a football stadium, arrests would have taken place. I have complained, twice, to the police, and have heard nothing. A Labour colleague waited three hours at the police station before being told that nothing would be done. The police are afraid of being accused of Islamophobia. Another Labour councillor said that the Met is now the reverse of what it must have been like in the 1970s, with a complete lack of interest when white people make complaints of harassment and hatred.”

In February this year, dozens of stickers appeared across Tower Hamlets quoting the Koran, declaring the borough a “gay-free zone” and stating that “verily Allah is severe in punishment.”

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that during a routine stop-and-search at the time police found a young Muslim man with a number of the stickers in his possession. He was released without charge on the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service. Police also had CCTV images of a second unidentified Muslim youth posting the stickers at a local railway station, but refused to release the pictures for several weeks.

Peter Tatchell, the gay human rights campaigner, said: “The police said no-one was allowed to talk publicly about this because they didn’t want to upset the Muslim community. We’ve made very clear the difference between the Muslim community as a whole and these particular fundamentalists, and the fact that the police wouldn’t publicly say what they knew was an absolute disgrace.”

When the CCTV footage was finally released, in early April, the culprit was quickly identified as 18-year-old Mohammed Hasnath, who last week pleaded guilty to a public order offence and was fined £100. Jack Gilbert, of the Rainbow Hamlets gay group, said a more serious charge should have been brought. “The vast majority of the community saw the material as threatening, but the police were not willing to accept it as threatening,” he said.

Hasnath’s “interests” on his Facebook page include Khalid Yasin, a hate preacher who describes Jews as “filth” and teaches that homosexuals must be killed. Yasin has spoken at least four times since 2007 at the East London Mosque, Tower Hamlets’ most prominent Muslim institution. Although the mosque claims to be against extremism, discrimination, and violence, it has hosted dozens of hate, extremist or terrorist preachers and also hosted a “Spot The Fag” contest.

In the same week that it issued a press release condemning the anti-gay stickers, the mosque was also due to host a “gala dinner” with Uthman Lateef, a homophobic hate preacher.

The mosque is controlled by a fundamentalist group, the Islamic Forum of Europe, which says that it is dedicated to changing the “very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed ... from ignorance to Islam.”

The IFE’s community affairs co-ordinator, Azad Ali, is chairman of the Muslim Safety Forum, an organisation officially recognised by the Met as its “principal [liaison] body in relation to Muslim community safety.” Mr Golds said: “This relationship may explain the police’s feebleness.” The IFE also has close links to the Tower Hamlets mayor, Mr Rahman... " Full article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8570506/Police-covered-up-violent-campaign-to-turn-London-area-Islamic.html

Is the Guardian developing harbitude?
Although the right-wing Telegraph has been reporting on the deteriorating situation for gays in London for some time, it's encouraging to see that the Guardian, long considered a bastion of Britain's Islamic-Leftist alliance, is now beginning to acknowledge this problem. Nevertheless, the police and courts are still paralyzed by political correctness about Islamophobia (which trumps homophobia), and are reluctant to prosecute for fear of damaging 'community cohesion'.

UPDATE 15-JUL-2011

Shariah Controlled Zone

The Guardian has obtained a month-by-month analysis of homophobic attacks. It reveals that incidents in Tower Hamlets have risen by a third (33%) between April 2009-March 2010 and April 2010-March 2011, much more than the 21% widely reported in the media. This comes as British Muslims are planning to implement 25 Shariaa controlled zones in British towns and cities.

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2011-06-08T01:55:00.000-07:00

All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace - The Monkey in the Machine and the Machine in the Monkey

2011-06-06T14:14:00.000-07:00

Challenging the mechanical model of the mind

The recent BBC2 programme, All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace, presented the case for computationalism - that is the belief that human beings are nothing more than biological machines programmed by genetic instructions. According to computationalism, there is no mind existing independently of matter and no spiritual or ethical dimension to human existence.

Computationalism, whether explicitly stated as a philosophical theory, or just implicitly accepted as the way the world is, as in this programme, has become the default belief of modern materialism. The computationalist worldview is responsible for much of the bleakness and brutalism in modern art and culture.

Computationalism, like its predecessor physicalism, is of course the antithesis of all religions, and one which religions find difficult to argue against, with the exception of Buddhism, which alone has the philosophical arguments to challenge it.

The programme publicity states: 'At the heart of the film is one of the most famous scientists in the world - Bill Hamilton. He argued that human behaviour is really guided by codes buried deep within us. It was later popularised by Richard Dawkins as 'the selfish gene'. It said that individual human beings are really just machines whose only job is to make sure the codes are passed on for eternity.'

Richard Dawkins was portrayed as the protagonist of this bleak view of human nature, though in fact Dawkins' view is rather more complex, and compatible with Buddhist philosophy.

Accepting our evolutionary history does not mean rejecting our spirituality. In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins says: ''We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators."

The programme tells how the geneticist George Price, appalled at the consequences of the Selfish Gene hypothesis, converted to an extreme form of Christianity in his attempt to rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators. Unfortunately Price's reaction, like so much of the Christian reaction against Darwinism, lacked any rational basis and in Price's case ended in suicide.

Christianity has always been a religion seeking a metaphysic, in contrast to Buddhism which is a metaphysic generating a religion.

Buddhism versus Computationalism in a nutshell
The difference between the Buddhist and the Computationalist view of reality can be stated quite simply:

The Buddhist believes that all functioning phenomena are dependent upon
- Causality
- Structure
- Designation by mind

The Computationalist believes that all functioning phenomena are dependent upon
- Causality
- Structure
...with the mind being reducible to the operations of causality on structure in the same way that the activities of a computer are reducible to the operation of algorithms on datastructures.

To the Buddhist, in contrast, the mind is an irreducible foundation of reality.

The Buddhist arguments against materialism and computationalism.

The Buddhist arguments against materialism in general, and computationalism in particular, are set out in these previous posts:

Qualia - Objective versus Subjective Experience

"Qualia are internal, subjective qualitative states such as the redness of red, aesthetic experiences of beauty and revulsion, pain, happiness, boredom, depression, elation, motivation, intention, the experience of understanding something for the first time, etc. Such states are subjective and private and are distinct (though causally related to) physical and neural activities...."

Minds, Machines and Meaning

"...computers are not only incapable of understanding meaning, but they actually strip all meaning out of anything fed into them..."

Objections to Computationalism and Arguments Against Machine Intelligence

...the 'Mother of All Algorithms' - the mental faculty that understands and creates algorithms - is unlikely itself to be algorithmic...

Non-algorithmic phenomena

"The great difficulty in talking about non-algorithmic phenomena is that although we can say in general terms what they do, it is impossible by their very nature to describe how they do it. (If we could describe in a stepwise manner what was going on, then the phenomenon would be algorithmic).
A typical example of a nonalgorithmic activity is assigning meaning to any object. For example, when is a chariot a heap of firewood? Or when is a car a pile of parts? (as discussed under sunyata). Many processes involving semantics, as distinct from syntax, appear to be non-algorithmic... "

Reductionism and Buddhist Philosophy

"Reductionism states that:

The mind is nothing but the brain.
The brain is nothing but a biological system.
Biological systems are nothing but chemical interactions.
Chemical interactions are nothing but physical interactions.
Therefore the mind is nothing but a set of physical interactions.

However, from a Buddhist standpoint, the reductionist argument is flawed at the top, it is flawed at the bottom and it is flawed in the middle... "

Consciousness and mind are not emergent phenomena

"The mind cannot be an emergent property of the brain or any other physical system, since emergent properties and emergent phenomena are psychological in origin, and require the pre-existence of an observer's mind in order to become manifest..."

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Jihad against Buddhists in Thailand intensifies

2011-06-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

From Atlas Shrugs

Subject line: Unreported story: Thailand mass migration due to Muslim terror
"Here in Thailand things are so bad that every quarter thousands (most likely tens of thousands) of non-Muslim (primarily Buddhist) Thai citizens in the south are abandoning homes, jobs, businesses, land holdings and generations of work to head for safer northern provinces. Their holdings are sold for a song to local Southern Muslims. This is the plan of the Muslim terrorists of course, and it's working. This forced mass migration of Buddhists and abandonment of property and homes in the south of Thailand is a part of terrorism story that is largely unreported in the local or international press.

I have no government sources to back up the numbers (thousands or tens of thousands) but this is not surprising as the government would not wish to acknowledge the huge demographic change in the south in the last few years as this would be an inconvenient truth (to borrow a phrase). You must also understand how the Thai national character sometimes prevents the telling of inconvenient truths. The abandoned homes and closed businesses tell the story though and any southern resident can recite a long list of friends and family already gone. Everybody wants out but it's difficult to leave assets and generations of attachment to the land and communities.

Yala Province public Thai schools are closed because all the teachers fled last year. All of them. The local Mosque schools are of course fully staffed and operating. The surging terrorist violence is readily apparent on Wikipedia where a fairly complete list of attacks shows that already in 2011 we have experienced 3 times the entire number of attacks for all 2010 but we're not even half way through the year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Thailand_insurgency

The world is not paying attention to the big picture story in Thailand because no one is pulling it all together. The world hears of an attack here or there, but nothing of the overall impact to the country and the southern Buddhists. There is a mass migration and population shift in progress but the story is not being told..." More

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Faith and Reason in Buddhism

2011-06-05T14:51:00.000-07:00

What is 'faith' in Buddhism? Is it like faith in other religions, in permanent antagonism to the intellect and requiring you to believe six impossible things before breakfast?

From Rational Buddhism:

Buddhism and ...

Faith, the ultimate F-word for rationalists

'For rationalists such as Richard Dawkins, 'Faith' is very much an F-word .

Faith makes a virtue out of believing unprovable and often improbable propositions. Dawkins contrasts this with the scientific method, which he describes as a system whereby working assumptions may be falsified by recourse to reason and evidence.

The Place of Faith in Buddhism
So is 'Faith' in Buddhism the same kind of unquestioning belief in bizarre and often mutually contradictory assertions as found in other religions, or is it more in the nature of 'Trust'.

Buddha, in his rejection of essentialism and affirmation of the importance of impermanence, displayed an insight into the way that things exist that has only recently been confirmed by science.   Buddhist meditational techniques have also recently been empirically verified to have measurable beneficial effects. But how far should we trust Buddhist doctrine when it deals with topics that are beyond our present comprehension?

Trusting the Guide to the Path
Consider the situation where we are hiking on a mountain in the Scottish Highlands.

We are following a map, when suddenly a fog closes in and we can only see a few feet ahead. We decide to get off the mountain as quickly as possible and wait for better weather.   The map shows a quick way down which appears to be shorter than the route we took to get here. But do we trust the map?

Well, there are good maps and not so good maps. There are maps originating from the observations of competent mountaineers using suitable equipment and accurate record keeping, and there are maps originating on the back of beer mats drawn from hazy memories in Highland bars at 11 o'clock at night after traversing the malt whisky shelf.

So how do we decide whether to follow the route on the map? How do we know it won't lead us over a cliff or into a bog?   Are we prepared to stake our safety and maybe our life on this map?

One way to weigh the risks would be to judge the reliability of the map by what it has shown so far. Has it accurately described the route we've taken?
Or has it shown things that aren't there, and missed out major features that are?

If Buddha's map to the path has proved accurate up to where we are now, then maybe we should have sufficient faith in it to take us a bit further along the path.' More

Alcoholism, Identity and Emptiness

2011-06-02T02:22:00.000-07:00

Buddhism and Recovery: Anonymity as Spiritual Foundation
- Kevin Griffin in The Huffington Post

"Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities."

The recent New York Times article about the 11th Tradition and anonymity stirred up a lot of controversy. But I think the 12th Tradition is ultimately more important.

When you walk into a 12-Step meeting you drop a big part of your identity. Certainly you drop your last name, but you typically don't bring your job title, your bank account, social role and many other unique identifiers. Although you'll very likely talk about some of your life's story, it's usually in the context of your "disease." And the point of that is to talk about what you share with everyone else in the room -- whether it's alcoholism, drug addiction, compulsive eating, relationship dysfunction, sex addiction or whatever.

You're not so much trying to establish your individuality as to let go of your sense of uniqueness.

When we stop trying to stand out in this way, we are working from the premise that, as the 12-Step literature says, "Selfishness -- self-centeredness! That we think is the root of our troubles." Dropping our last name and our sense of uniqueness is a way to counter this tendency of trying to be the most special person; of trying to control everything and everyone around us; of putting satisfaction of our own desires before the needs of those around us.

Like many 12-Step ideas, there is a brilliance in this one. Without exactly telling us why we are doing it, the tradition of saying, "Hi, I'm Kevin and I'm..." guides us to an experience of letting go and an insight into our own suffering -- the suffering of self-centeredness.

The Buddha takes this idea even further when he declares that the very idea of a separate self is a misperception. If that is the case, then being self-centered is really a problem because there's nothing there to be centered on!

Many people struggle with this idea, called anatta, which might best be translated as "not-self," as in, "Your name is not your self; your body is not your self; your thoughts are not your self; your feelings are not your self." The Buddha says that if you can't control something, then it doesn't belong to you; you can't claim it as who you are. So, one of the first things we look at when we learn Buddhist meditation is whether we can control any of this stuff, and pretty quickly we learn that we can't. Sure, we can have some influence over them, but when you get sick or obsessed with something or depressed, you obviously are not choosing to have that experience.

This idea that no part of you is yours, that none of these things define you, is, we could say, the spiritual foundation of Buddhism. In some greater sense, then, we are always anonymous. Yes, we can make a sound and say that that sound is "my name," but it's really not. It's just an agreement made by everyone that this body and mind will be called by that sound: "K-e-v-i-n." Me!

The Buddhist teaching, then, points toward the same idea as Tradition Twelve: live by spiritual principles, not by orienting toward self. Follow the Five Precepts of Non-Harming; practice the Noble Eightfold Path; offer lovingkindness and compassion to all beings; live with wisdom and equanimity. In the recovery world, we have similar principles: honesty, integrity, faith, courage, letting go, kindness, generosity, spiritual connection.

It's not that you have to stop being you. The "functional self" continues. You can still talk about "I." It's just that you know that these are simply conventions, not absolute truths. And you know the potential for suffering when you become attached to identity. Oftentimes, when we are struggling, we can simply ask ourselves, "What aspect of my identity is threatened right now? What sense of self am I clinging to?" The answer will usually be apparent. Then the only question is, "Can I let go of that right now?" That's where the real work begins.

Exercise: Who Is Myself?
Make a list of all the roles you play, all your identities, whether it's work, family, friends, your talents, your personality traits, your emotional patterns, your addictive habits. Look at all the things that you call "I," like name, body, memories, plans, accomplishments, etc.

Once you've got the list, go through it one-by-one and ask, "Is this permanent? Could it change? Does it belong to me? Do I control it?" Then ask yourself, "Does this ever cause me pain or discomfort? What would happen if I didn't believe this was 'me'? How can I stop clinging to this identity?"

Related Post
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'Modern Buddhism' now in Public Domain

2011-06-01T13:58:00.000-07:00

The author - Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

Leading Buddhist author Geshe Kelsang Gyatso has released the authoritative Modern Buddhism into the public domain as pdf files and eBook formats.

The book is downloadable in three volumes free of charge.

Topics include:

Volume 1 Sutra

- Introduction
- Paths of Initial, Middling and Great scope
- Bodhichitta, Love and Compassion
- The Six Perfections
- Emptiness of Body, Mind, Ego and the Eight Extremes
- Conventional and Ultimate Truths
- the Union of the Two Truths
- Lamrim

Volume 2 Tantra

- Introduction to Tantra
- Correcting Misunderstandings
- Relation of Sutra to Tantra
- Tantra of Generation Stage
- Tantra of Completion Stage
- The Subtle Body: Channels, Drops, Winds and the Mind
- Mahamudra
- Great Bliss
- Heruka Body Mandala
- Instructions of Vajrayogini
- Yogas of Sleeping, Rising and Experiencing Nectar

Volume 3 Prayers for Daily Practice

- Liberating Prayer
- Prayers for Meditation
- The Yoga of Buddha Heruka
- Blissful Journey
- Quick Path to Great Bliss
- Liberation from Sorrow (Prayers to the very popular female Buddha Tara)
- Avalokiteshvara Sadhana

- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Study Programmes of Kadampa Buddhism
- Tharpa Offices Worldwide
- Index
- Further Reading

About the author

GET IT HERE

Offering Crystals on Buddhist Shrines

2011-05-29T14:25:00.000-07:00

Buddhist Crystal Offerings

Geodes, crystal wish-granting tree, quartz crystals and amethysts as crystal offerings to the Buddhas (click image to enlarge)

Crystals, with their combined translucent, reflective and refractive properties are used to symbolise...

The light of Dharma reflecting and radiating in all directions from the multiple facets of the crystals.
The clarity of the mind.
The emptiness of all phenomena
Wish-fulfilling jewels for relief of suffering

Wish granting tree on crystal base with crystal leaves

Wish granting trees are often made from crystals. The facets of the crystals radiate in all directions the fulfillment of the wishes of those wanting to be free from suffering.

Geode

Geodes symbolise emptiness.

Medicine Buddha with blue geode

Crystal Healing
Some practitioners include specific crystals for their healing properties within their shrine offerings. Therapists place their healing crystals before the Buddhas to purify them and increase their potency with the Buddhas' blessings.

Quartz Crystal Geode

---

Subject Index

2011-05-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

A
Aesthetics
- numinous symbolism

Alcoholism

Alexander the Great

Alchemy
- alchemical symbolism
- Jungian psychology

Algorithms
- computationalism (objections to)
- non-algorithmic phenomena

Anthropic Principle (participatory)

Art

- contemporary Buddhist Art from Thailand
- why beauty matters

Artificial intelligence

Bodhisattva vows

Buddhist Blogs

Candlemas

Cauldron, chalice and grail symbolism

Celtic Buddhism

Chakras

Christianity

Christmas for Buddhists

Collective Karma

Computer model of mind

Conventional and Ultimate Truths

Creationism

Crystal offerings and crystal healing

D
Dawkins, Richard

Depression

- Bodhisattva vows

- meditation

Double negation

Dreams

Druids

Dukkha

E
Emergent Phenomena
- mind

Emptiness
- existence and impermanence
- emptiness of all phenomena

Entheogens

Essentialism
- in physics, chemistry and biology
- Platonic ideal forms

Evolution
- not a threat to Buddhism
- death threats for teaching evolution

Existence
- inherent existence

F
Fatalism

Femininity

Four seals of Dharma

Fundamentalism

G
Generic images
- contrasted with ideal Platonic forms
- as logical 'holes'

Greco-Buddhism

H
Halloween

Hellenism
- dehellenization and irrationalism

Humanism

Idolatry

Impermanence

Inherent existence

Islam

- Islam will dominate
- destruction of Buddhist heritage
- rejection of reason

K
Kalama Sutra

Lucid Dreaming

Machine

- model of mind
- computer intelligence

Magic mushrooms

Mantras

Materialism

Mathematics

Meaning

- minds, machines and meaning
- shared etymology of meaning and mind

Meditation Research

- brain scan

- depression treatment

- stress reduction

Memes

Migtsema

Mind
- not an emergent phenomenon

Mind-viruses

Mindfulness

Modern Buddhism free eBook downloadable for Windows, Mac, Kindle, Sony Reader, Nook and Android

Multiverse

Mysticism

Nadis

Nectars and Meats

Numinous symbolism

Pagan Festivals

Permanent phenomena

Pets

Plato
- ideal forms and essentialism

Process Philosophy

Psychedelic Buddhism

Q
Qualia

Quantum physics
- partless particles
- quantum Buddhism

R
Rationalism
- Hellenism, humanism and rationalism
- Kalama Sutra
- Irrationalism in religion
- The rational foundations of Buddhism

Reductionism

Reification

S
Samsaric gods

Secularism

Selfish Gene

Shamanism

Stress

Subtle Body

Sunyata

Symbolism

T
Tantra
- tantra and sutra
- tantric transformations
- Jungian psychology

Tara

Teenagers

Three poisons

Triskelions

Tummo

Twenty questions

Ultimate Truth

Vajrasattva

Wheel of Dharma

W
Whitehead

Wish-granting tree

Other alphabetically arranged indexes of Buddhist topics and terminology

Kadampa Glossary

Guide to Buddhism A to Z

Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism Online

Access to Insight

Rational Buddhism

2011-05-24T12:51:00.000-07:00

The Sleep of Reason brings forth Monsters

I've started a new blog, RATIONAL BUDDHISM, to explore to what extent the teachings of Buddhism can be derived from reason and observation, rather than relying excessively on 'revealed truths' as in the more obscurantist dogmatic religions.

If we regard Buddhism as a combination of a philosophy, psychology and religion, then how much mileage can we get from the first two aspects before we have to start invoking religious faith?

One advantage of establishing a rational basis for Buddhism is that it gives Buddhism an 'intellectual respectability' at a time when the intellectual prestige of the dogmatic religions is in steep decline.

Introductory article

Manjushri's seed syllable the orange letter DHI

2011-05-24T04:31:00.000-07:00


The Letter DHI

Manjushri's seed syllable DHI is used in many wisdom visulizations. It is normally visualized as orange-colored. It is the final syllable of Manjushri's mantra
OM AH RA PA TSA NA DHI.

Ed Halliwell - Comment is free

2011-05-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

Just came across a series of interesting posts on Buddhism and Mindfulness by Ed Halliwell at the Guardian's Comment is Free. Here are a few excerpts:

Meditation is an emotional rollercoaster
"...A lot of people now come to meditation having read reports on the virtues of mindfulness. Last week there was one claiming it can ward off ageing, and one suggesting meditators make more rational decisions. A month ago mindfulness was declared more effective for pain relief than morphine (maybe, but I still wouldn't fancy the dentist's drill without an injection), while it's also being said to increase grey matter in the brain, ease the fear of dying, and help US army troops operate effectively in a war zone, as well as protecting them from post-traumatic stress. Two new books are out in May, offering meditation plans as a proven path to wellbeing.

Such reports and regimes are genuinely helpful – I've written and enthused about similar ones myself – but collectively they can start to give the impression that meditation is the cure for all life's ills, and that if we could just sit down and follow the breath, problems and pain will fall away. Ten or 20 years ago, meditation suffered from an undeserved association with flaky new-ageism; today there's a danger of another unhelpful image – mindfulness as hassle-free, quick fix.

As anyone who's actually sat down to practise knows, this is a consumer fantasy. Mindfulness has a great many benefits, but they tend to come as a by-product of getting up close to unpleasant experiences like pain, turmoil, and "negative" thought patterns. Striving to avoid unwanted aspects of ourselves and our lives creates stress – by facing them openly in meditation, we give ourselves a chance to relate to suffering more skilfully, with confidence and compassion..."

You don't need the 'right' kind of zafu to be a Buddhist

"...Unlike many western Buddhists, I don't feel a strong connection with the East. I've never been to India or Tibet, don't get excited about Japanese tea ceremonies, and am usually filled with irritation and embarrassment when fellow westerners greet me by saying "Namaste" or in some other way acting as if they're from Bodhgaya rather than Brent Cross or Bangor. While deeply grateful to the lineages through which Buddhist practices are taking root in the west, my attraction to them is primarily their clear and direct transmission of insights and instructions that speak to me practically, ethically and spiritually. The fact that they came from Asia seems unimportant.

So reading Dzogchen Ponlop's new book Rebel Buddha gave me heart. Ponlop is a well-respected Tibetan teacher, steeped in the cultural heritage of his tradition, and yet his central premise is that western Buddhists risk making fools of themselves if their practice is based on attachment to foreign rituals that were adopted wholesale by spiritual seekers in the 60s. "If the Buddha's teaching is to remain relevant," says Ponlop, "we can't hold on to our hippie-era presentation of it... it is senseless to hang on to the forms of a traditional, Asian Buddhist culture and pretend we can fully inhabit that experience in a meaningful way."

Can we feel the future through psi? Don't rule it out
A study suggesting the existence of precognition should be carefully scrutinised – not dismissed out of hand.

George Osborne's cheap shot at contemplation
The chancellor's implication that meditation is wasteful ignores evidence that Buddhist mindfulness is a powerful tool.

Reframing the New Atheism debate
The centrality of consciousness should be acknowledged, rather than seeing the debate as purely scientific or religious

"... New Atheism doesn't acknowledge the centrality of consciousness", suggesting that when we view ourselves and the world in purely material terms, as crude scientism does, we rob ourselves of some of our humanity. Sadly, she didn't elaborate further, and a potential flicker of illumination was lost.

So how might the lie of the land change if we did acknowledge the centrality of consciousness?
This would mean taking an active interest in how our attempts at making objective observations are inevitably coloured by the subjective standpoint from which we view them; and becoming more alert to how our perceptions and perspectives are built from the ground of our personal histories: the parenting we received, our education, our cultural background, our genetics, the time and place we live in and so on. It would mean recognising that we don't see things clearly.
When a TV picture is fuzzy, don't we then examine our receiving equipment, rather than assuming the fuzziness is meant to be part of the transmission? In meditation practice, this process is sometimes called "turning the eyeballs inwards" and it's a central element of the Buddhist non-theistic tradition, which is, it has been said, less interested in whether God exists as whether the perceiver of God exists. Or, to put it another way, how can we judge evidence accurately when we're doing the judging from the position of an ever-changing, non-solid self and not recognising that our standpoint must inevitably influence the observation?"...

Mindfulness: beyond the science
Each month, a digest of the latest research on mindfulness meditation lands in my inbox. The volume of studies has mushroomed in recent years – the most recent round-up (pdf) alone cites 35 new papers detailing effects on people with conditions such as heart disease and borderline personality disorder, the results of an innovative new mindfulness curriculum for schools, and the impact of mindfulness-based stress reduction courses on the structure of the brain (it seems to reduce density in the amygdala).

Scientific studies show the effects of mindfulness, but can they do justice to the transformation felt by many who practise it? If practising mindfulness can help people – and it appears to – then all this evidence can only be a good thing. Whereas for years meditation's public image was stuck in the 1960s, tainted with hippie self-indulgence or new-age flakiness, now it's being taken seriously by everyone from top academics to US congressman and government departments.

But while it's the gold standard for evidence in our culture, can scientific data tell the whole story? In our book The Mindful Manifesto, Jonty Heaversedge and I describe how mindfulness is now being presented as a secular healing tool, but we also felt it important to acknowledge how for thousands of years it has been linked with spiritual training. Scientific studies might show that mindfulness improves well-being in material terms, but can they do justice to the inner transformation that occurs for many people who practise it? Isn't something lost by presenting its effects purely as a physical or mental health benefit..."

Buddhism in education

"...As faith schooling from various traditions continues to grab headlines, the prospect of a specifically Buddhist education hasn't been much mooted. School-based practices inspired by Buddhism, on the other hand, are starting to gain momentum. Last weekend, Goldie Hawn was enthusing about the British launch of her meditation in schools programme, while, on a slightly lower key note, mindfulness teaching has already been introduced in several private institutions – Wellington College and Tonbridge School among them. There are also initiatives to introduce meditation in the state sector, under the guidance of psychologists such as Mark Williams in Oxford.

It's been said that Buddhism will establish itself in the west as a psychology rather than a religion, and that seems to be the case here - many of those introducing meditation to schools wouldn't identify as Buddhists. And the rationale has been mostly scientific – among other benefits, meditation has been shown to foster attention skills, reduce aggression, and increase pro-social behaviour and relational abilities (among children and adults), as well as protecting against anxiety and depression..."

The mindful enlightenment Buddhist practices can help bring about a new kind of social enlightenment.

"A fresh kind of enlightenment is in the air. Madeleine Bunting recently reported on the bold vision for progress being set out by Matthew Taylor at the Royal Society Of Arts. Calling for a new "revolution of the mind", the RSA is grounding its arguments in empirical studies from neuroscience and psychology.
Evidence from these disciplines is making it increasingly clear that we are social creatures with plastic minds, wired for empathy and able to access a consciousness that, if developed, could help release us from the shackles of emotion that so often bind us. Building on its 18th-century precursor, the defining feature of this enlightenment is an understanding that to tackle the world's most pressing problems, we don't just need more action, we need more awareness...."

Let's be honest about placeboRather than dismissing treatments that use placebo as hocus pocus, we should learn what we can from this powerful effect

Investigating the Buddhist mindsetDoes the Dalai Lama's support for a 'centre for investigating healthy minds' compromise its scientific respectability?

A prescription for meditation
Research shows Transcendental Meditation, despite its celebrity baggage, can be an effective way of fighting depression.

'World's next top lama' to visit Europe
The Karmapa, 24 years old and likely spiritual successor to the Dalai Lama, is coming to the UK in June.

Suffering doesn't have to be worthless
Does suffering improve us? If we can steer a middle way through suffering, neither wallowing in it nor ignoring it, it can help us grow.

Buddhism beats depression
Should the health service sponsor Buddhist techniques to beat depression? Why not, if they work

How do you get to Nirvana? Practice
"These can feel like giddy times for a Buddhist. It is not long since just mentioning meditation tagged you as a gullible new-ager or self-indulgent hippie. Buddhism, if considered at all, had a reputation for promoting withdrawal from this pain-filled world. But in the space of a few short years, core dharma has permeated western society's most influential institutions.

Madeleine Bunting charts the cracks in our once-cherished concepts of individual identity, and notes how the Buddhist teaching of egolessness resonates with corresponding insights from neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Ideas that chime with Buddhism are being championed by the Royal Society of Arts and the New Economics Foundation, and reported in mainstream media. Before cif belief, I never dreamed I would synchronise my journalistic career and meditation practice, finding national newspaper space to write from a Buddhist perspective.

Buddhism is reaching beyond academia, think tanks and the media. Most GPs are aware of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and cognitive therapy (MBCT), well-researched approaches to health problems which feature meditation as their core component. MBCT is endorsed by the National Institute For Clinical Excellence, and thousands of people are being referred to mindfulness training on the NHS. In Scotland, the government has funded more than 200 healthcare professionals to teach MBCT. As Mark Vernon says, "people right now are slowly eating raisins in a workshop somewhere near you."

I'm glad they are, because if Buddhist practices are to work, they must be what they say on the tin – practices. Reading about them or studying them scientifically may be helpful as inspiration, but unless the disciplines are applied (repeatedly), the effect will be minimal. It's one thing to decide that compassion is a good thing, that mindfulness could make us healthier, or that there is no separate self, but quite another to develop compassion, mindfulness and selflessness. Our bodies and brains are products of millions of years of evolution that have programmed us to behave in certain ways, and as most of us discover painfully, it is not so easy to change habits we carry from the past...."

Self-help can be no help
Quick fixes often make the underlying problems worse. Letting go of the desire for self-improvement is the answer 10 comments


The drugs don't work
The number of people on antidepressants is soaring – we may be more miserable, but let's swap the pills for support and care



Between the rational and the mystical
What is agnosticism?: We neither need an external, creator God, nor to close ourselves off from the spectacular majesty of existence


Dawkins strips away religion's dead wood
Dawkins is doing religion a favour – by exposing faith and spirituality to criticism, he paves the way for their renewal.

"I doubt it was his intention, but in 100 years time Richard Dawkins could be hailed as a prime architect of 21st-century religion. Though strident to the point of comic fundamentalism, the New Atheist diatribe has not only laid bare the irrationalities of believers, but forced those of us who favour scientific-spiritual accommodation to sharpen our arguments. And that can only aid the development of spiritual forms fit for the modern world.

When I first picked up The God Delusion, I was a bit disappointed to find it was rather polite about my own tradition. Right up there in chapter one, Dawkins sensibly suggests that Buddhism might be seen as an ethical or philosophical system rather than a religion, and so not a major focus for his ire. We've got off lightly from other anti-religionists too – Sam Harris even goes on Buddhist meditation retreats.

The International Buddhist Film Festival, which opened in London last week, has at least provoked a bit of poking at our flabby underbelly. On Radio 3, Martin Palmer accused western Buddhists of creating their own version based on "the religion we don't want, which is Judeo-Christian, and the religion we would love to have, which isn't quite religion, which … doesn't have too many rules, and the rules it does have, like the Tibetan ban on homosexuality, are conveniently forgotten." Mark Vernon, relaying Palmer's comments on his blog, agreed, describing western Buddhism as "deeply partial, a pick 'n' mix religion". Their criticisms would appear to be supported by a glance at the IBFF schedule, which includes films – such as Donnie Darko and Hamlet – for which the label Buddhist seems pretty tenuous.

But Buddhism has always changed shape according to place and time. Impermanence, as one of the three marks of existence, must apply also to Buddhism itself. It accepts, even demands, that every culture must find its own unique expressions of awakening. To prevent them becoming pieces of stale ideology, its discoveries must be tested anew by each practitioner, rather than being swallowed from scripture. Whenever Buddhism is embraced in a new location, it has mixed with pre-existing wisdom – hence, for example, why Zen looks so different from Tibetan Vajrayana.

In Buddhism there should be no room for dogma – the ultimate criteria for performing an action is its role in alleviating the suffering of oneself and others. A course of action could reduce suffering in one circumstance and magnify it in another, so the rules are there to be broken and the traditions are there to be changed, provided, of course, you can do it skilfully. When asked to sum up the essence of Buddhism, Japanese teacher Shunyru Susuki replied "Not always so". The pliability of the teachings means that mistakes can be learned from, and culturally created doctrines or codes of behaviour that are unwise, outdated or harmful – the aforementioned approach to homosexuality for example – can be freely consigned to the bin.

Does that make western Buddhism a pick 'n' mix religion? Perhaps it does – but if we pick and mix well, we might create something good. Indeed, if we pick wise insights from the past and mix them with the ever-accumulating knowledge from our own cultural heritage, then what we might have a viable model for 21st-century spirituality. It needn't even be called Buddhism, which is, after all, just a word.

As a path that simultaneously emphasises both constant change and a relentless search for truth, perhaps Buddhism is in a good position to develop more mature forms. However, the rational onslaught must inevitably spur other traditions to self-question and adapt too. And this is where Richard Dawkins may well be one of religion's greatest allies. The old code that sacred beliefs cannot be challenged for fear of causing offence has been shattered – and it needed shattering. If the sacred dimension just means articles of faith that provoke outrage when assaulted, then religion and the religious would be better off without them. Dawkins and his ilk may have their sights trained on eliminating religion, but what they are actually doing is exposing its dead wood, the anachronisms that have been protected from critical thinking, and that needed cutting away.

Claims to special privilege in society, indoctrination of belief as fact, repressive or violent acts as a means of evangelism, and the upholding of outdated worldviews on scriptural grounds – all these and many other examples of the misuse of spiritual traditions do them no favours and should be dropped. If that is pick 'n' mix religion, can I be first in the queue at the sweet counter?


More articles by Ed Halliwell at http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/ed-halliwell?page=2 and http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/ed-halliwell?page=3

Rational Buddhism

The Subtle Body as the Mind's User-interface.

2011-05-14T06:37:00.000-07:00

Sacred Mirror by Alex Grey

Buddhist visualizations of the subtle body
One of the most perplexing aspects of Buddhist practice to a scientifically trained Westerner is the system of meditational chakras, energy channels (nadis), subtle winds (pranas) and bindus (drops). This system doesn't correspond to any physical anatomical structure known to modern Western medical science.

But it's unlikely that the system of chakras etc was dreamed up by ancient Buddhists in ignorance of the true 'physical' structure of human anatomy, because anatomical knowledge would be available from doctors, and hacked up corpses in the charnel grounds, not to mention battlefields. So if this 'subtle body' it isn't part of the physical anatomy, what is it?

The chakra system is visualized and manipulated during advanced meditations, and it does indeed seem to correspond to some kind of functioning reality, because as well as producing subjective mental effects, the meditator can also produce objectively measurable physiological effects, the most well-documented of these being 'tummo' or inner fire.

Tummo is a measurable increase in body temperature, heat production and metabolic rate resulting from meditational visualizations of jets of flame burning in the chakras and energy channels. There have been various reports of this phenomenon in the scientific literature. One of the best known exponents of tummo is Wim Hof, the ice-man.

So the chakra system is a mentally-projected visualized model of the body which bears little resemblance to physical structures, yet nevertheless it can be mentally manipulated to produce physical effects.

A strange Western parallel - visualization for treatment of arthritis.

These chakra phenomena have seemed esoteric and unrelated to Western medical science until recently, when another totally independent example of manipulation of a visualized mental projection has produced physiological and anatomical benefits:

The BBC has reported how a 'mind-trick' may help arthritis pain.

"A chance discovery by academics in Nottingham has found that a simple optical illusion could unlock a drug-free treatment for arthritis. The computer-generated mind trick has been tested on a small sample of sufferers and found that in 85 per cent of cases it halved their pain.

Research is still in the early stages, but initial results suggest the technology, called Mirage, could help patients improve mobility in their hands by reducing the amount of pain they experience. For the illusion to work patients place their hand inside a box containing a camera, which then projects the image in realtime onto a screen in front of them.

The subject then sees their arthritic fingers being apparently stretched and shrunk by someone gently pushing and pulling from the other side of the box.

Chance finding

The Mirage mind trick has been developed by The University of Nottingham's Psychology department. It was first used at an open day last year as part of research project into the way our brains put together what we see and feel happening to our bodies. The machine was a big hit with children at first, but it was one of their grandparents who made an unexpected discovery.

Dr Catherine Preston, from Nottingham Trent University, who is collaborating on the study said: "The grandmother wanted to have a go, but warned us to be gentle because of the arthritis in her fingers.

"We were giving her a practical demonstration of illusory finger stretching when she announced, 'My finger doesn't hurt any more', and asked whether she could take the machine home with her. We were just stunned - I don't know who was more surprised, her or us."

The chance find was followed up by recruiting 20 volunteers with osteoarthritis to put Mirage to the test. The subjects averaged 70 years old and had all been clinically diagnosed with arthritic pain in their hands and fingers. Before starting the test they were asked to rate their pain from 0-20, with 0 indicating no pain and 20 representing the most unbearable pain they could imagine.

Pam Tegerdine, from Nottingham, volunteered for the first study. She has suffered with osteoarthritis since her 30s and now has constant pain in her hands, feet, and lower back. Physiotherapy and numerous prescription drugs help, but she said the optical-illusion technology was like nothing she had ever experienced.

"It was a very weird sensation, but as my finger was being 'stretched' it felt more and more comfortable. I just wanted it to stay like that, to keep that image in my head. If this could lead to a drug-free treatment for arthritis then that would be fantastic... FULL ARTICLE, also BBC4 interview

Chakra visualizations as high-level user interfaces.

So how do we account for these 'high-level' mental projections and visualized models having effects on the 'low-level' structures of the body such as cells, neurones and hormones? A possible analogy might be with the levels of 'user interfaces' to computer systems.

The low level structure of a computer consists of millions of microscopic semiconductor devices, which are difficult and tedious for the user to access and manipulate in any sensible fashion. For example, the lowest level user interface to the oldest computers consisted of sixteen switches and a seventeenth ACCEPT switch on the front panel.

A low level user-interface

The user set the computer going by programming in the bootstrap routine as double-byte 'words' by setting each of the 16 bit switches, then pressing the 17th ACCEPT switch, and doing this sequentially until the entire bootstrap routine had been loaded. A single wrong switch position in the sequence of 16-bit words would invalidate the entire operation. After this, the user could use higher level interfaces such as punched tape, cards, or later technological marvels such as teletypes.

Slightly higher level interfaces were cathode ray tubes, where sequences of commands could be typed in on a keyboard (anyone remember MS-DOS?). Later on came the WIMPS (Windows, Icons, Menu, Pointing Device) interfaces and desktop metaphors which are ubiquitous nowadays.

This analogy with computer interfaces demonstrates how the more visual and tactile an interface becomes, the more useful it is to the user. In contrast to the old 16-bit switch banks, these modern graphical user interfaces bear no obvious correspondence to the basic 'anatomy' of the computer, yet they are far more powerful.

So might these chakra visualizations and similar mental projections be the mind's 'software configuration' for providing access to otherwise complex and inaccessible anatomical, neurological and endocrine systems?

A simple visual and tactile interface to a complex biological system

The idea of chakras appears throughout history and across different cultures.

So is the chakra model normally hidden within everyone's subconscious, but has been discovered and brought to the levels of conscious awareness by meditators?

Is the fact that we're already half aware of the model the reason that it seems to resonate even with Westerners who are increasingly using chakra visualizations as alternative therapies?

UPDATE

Crossing your arms 'relieves hand pain'
Crossing your arms across your body after injury to the hand could relieve pain, researchers suggest.

The results from both participants' reports and the EEG showed that the perception of pain was weaker when the arms were crossed over the "midline" - an imaginary line running vertically down the centre of the body.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13452457

Buddhism Subject Index

Brains of Buddhist monks scanned in meditation study

2011-05-13T13:11:00.000-07:00

From the BBC:
By Matt Danzico BBC News, New York

In a laboratory tucked away off a noisy New York City street, a soft-spoken neuroscientist has been placing Tibetan Buddhist monks into a car-sized brain scanner to better understand the ancient practice of meditation.

But could this unusual research not only unravel the secrets of leading a harmonious life but also shed light on some of the world's more mysterious diseases?

Zoran Josipovic, a research scientist and adjunct professor at New York University, says he has been peering into the brains of monks while they meditate in an attempt to understand how their brains reorganise themselves during the exercise.

Since 2008, the researcher has been placing the minds and bodies of prominent Buddhist figures into a five-tonne (5,000kg) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine.
The scanner tracks blood flow within the monks' heads as they meditate inside its clunky walls, which echoes a musical rhythm when the machine is operating.

Dr Josipovic, who also moonlights as a Buddhist monk, says he is hoping to find how some meditators achieve a state of "nonduality" or "oneness" with the world, a unifying consciousness between a person and their environment.

The study specifically looks at the default network in the brain, which controls self-reflective thoughts

"One thing that meditation does for those who practise it a lot is that it cultivates attentional skills," Dr Josipovic says, adding that those harnessed skills can help lead to a more tranquil and happier way of being.
"Meditation research, particularly in the last 10 years or so, has shown to be very promising because it points to an ability of the brain to change and optimise in a way we didn't know previously was possible."
When one relaxes into a state of oneness, the neural networks in experienced practitioners change as they lower the psychological wall between themselves and their environments, Dr Josipovic says.
And this reorganisation in the brain may lead to what some meditators claim to be a deep harmony between themselves and their surroundings.

Dr Josipovic's research is part of a larger effort better to understand what scientists have dubbed the default network in the brain.

He says the brain appears to be organised into two networks: the extrinsic network and the intrinsic, or default, network.

Dr Josipovic has scanned the brains of more than 20 experienced meditators during the study

The extrinsic portion of the brain becomes active when individuals are focused on external tasks, like playing sports or pouring a cup of coffee.

The default network churns when people reflect on matters that involve themselves and their emotions.
But the networks are rarely fully active at the same time. And like a seesaw, when one rises, the other one dips down.

This neural set-up allows individuals to concentrate more easily on one task at any given time, without being consumed by distractions like daydreaming.

"What we're trying to do is basically track the changes in the networks in the brain as the person shifts between these modes of attention," Dr Josipovic says.

Dr Josipovic has found that some Buddhist monks and other experienced meditators have the ability to keep both neural networks active at the same time during meditation - that is to say, they have found a way to lift both sides of the seesaw simultaneously.

And Dr Josipovic believes this ability to churn both the internal and external networks in the brain concurrently may lead the monks to experience a harmonious feeling of oneness with their environment.

Self-reflection
Scientists previously believed the self-reflective, default network in the brain was simply one that was active when a person had no task on which to focus their attention.
But researchers have found in the past decade that this section of the brain swells with activity when the subject thinks about the self.

The default network came to light in 2001 when Dr Marcus Raichle, a neurologist at the Washington University School of Medicine in the US state of Missouri, began scanning the brains of individuals who were not given tasks to perform.

The patients quickly became bored, and Dr Raichle noticed a second network, that had previously gone unnoticed, danced with activity. But the researcher was unclear why this activity was occurring.
Other scientists were quick to suggest that Dr Raichle's subjects could have actually been thinking about themselves.

Soon other neuroscientists, who conducted studies using movies to stimulate the brain, found that when there was a lull of activity in a film, the default network began to flash - signalling that research subjects may have begun to think about themselves out of boredom. But Dr Raichle says the default network is important for more than just thinking about what one had for dinner last night.
"Researchers have wrestled with this idea of how we know we are who we are. The default mode network says something about how that might have come to be," he says.

And Dr Raichle adds that those studying the default network may also help in uncovering the secrets surrounding some psychological disorders, like depression, autism and even Alzheimer's disease.
"If you look at Alzheimer's Disease, and you look at whether it attacks a particular part of the brain, what's amazing is that it actually attacks the default mode network," says Dr Raichle, adding that intrinsic network research, like Dr Josipovic's, could assist in explaining why that is.

Cindy Lustig, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan, agrees.
"It's a major and understudied network in the brain that seems to be very involved in a lot of neurological disorders, including autism and Alzheimer's, and understanding how that network interacts with the task-oriented [extrinsic] network is important," she says. "It is sort of the other piece of the puzzle that's been ignored for too long."

Dr Josipovic has scanned the brains of more than 20 experienced meditators, both monks and nuns who primarily study the Tibetan Buddhist style of meditation, to better understand this mysterious network.
He says his research, which will soon be published, will for the moment continue to concentrate on explaining the neurological implications of oneness and tranquillity - though improving understanding of autism or Alzheimer's along the way would certainly be quite a bonus.

Related posts
Rational Buddhism

Buddhist Mindfulness Meditation Alleviates Depression

'The greatest man-made force for evil in the world today'

2011-05-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

Here's an update from Islamophobia Watch on the earlier article 'Buddhists, Dawkins and Gays worried by Islam in Europe' , in particular atheist Richard Dawkins having second thoughts about the collapse of Christianity due to the realisation that it is the bulwark against something worse...

'Dawkins ponders anti-Islam alliance with evangelical Christians
Richard Dawkins is often described as a "militant atheist". However, if this term is meant to convey that Dawkins maintains a uniform hostility to all varieties of religious belief then it is misapplied.
Dawkins makes no attempt to hide the fact that he is discriminatory in his opposition to different faiths. He happily describes himself as a "cultural Christian" – by which he means a cultural Anglican. After all, according to Dawkins, Roman Catholicism is "the world's second most evil religion". No prizes for guessing which faith is the most evil. Indeed, Dawkins holds the view that Islam is not only by far the worst of all the major faiths but is also arguably "the greatest man-made force for evil in the world today".

In the past, however, Dawkins has presented evangelical Christianity in the US as a major enemy alongside Islam. Addressing a session at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2008, he told his audience that it was "possible to see Europe as a haven of civilisation, with the pincer movement of Islam on one side and the US on the other".

Now, however, Dawkins is prepared to consider the possibility of an alliance with US Christian evangelism to stem the tide of Islam. He has reproduced on his website a map by the Bakke Graduate University which portrays Islam and Christianity locked in conflict over the future of Africa. The BGU warns:

"For centuries, Islam has attempted to move southward on the continent of Africa. In spite of wars, political upheavals, and massive financial investments, the spread of Islam has remained stalled for 400 years just south of the Sahara desert and just inland of the eastern coast. The Islamic and Christian worldviews remain deadlocked in front-line nations such as Somalia, Sudan, and Mali. North of this line, wealthy foundations from the Middle East have poured money into colossal mosques, Islamic schools, and economic development. The strategies to reinforce this front line appear to be well-coordinated efforts to use money, impressive buildings, and children's education to shore up the future of Islam in the region."

Still, all is not lost. The BGU explains: "It appears as if God is reinforcing the African front-line from the south with resources from the west. This is not a centrally-planned strategy, but the movement of the Holy Spirit in churches, businesses and governments. Many who supply relief and education probably aren't aware that they have been sent by their Creator to accomplish His purposes in the region. Others are acutely aware of His call."

And how does Dawkins respond to Bakke Graduate University's promotion of Christian-Muslim conflict in Africa? By using it to illustrate his thesis that religious faith is "dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition"? Not at all. He writes:
"Given that Islam is such an unmitigated evil, and looking at the map supplied by this Christian site, should we be supporting Christian missions in Africa? My answer is still no, but I thought it was worth raising the question. Given that atheism hasn't any chance in Africa for the foreseeable future, could our enemy's enemy be our friend?"

This raises a number of interesting points for Buddhists.

- Should Buddhists support an informal coalition of 'kuffars' against Islamic supremacism? Historically Islam has attacked all religions, but has been particularly devastating to Buddhism.

- Should Buddhists support Christianity in situations where Buddhism hasn't a chance in the foreseeable future? For example, Buddhism has a strong anti-materialist philosophical basis which seems absent from Christianity. "Christianity ... has always been a religion seeking a metaphysic, in contrast to Buddhism which is a metaphysic generating a religion ." One of the reasons Islam is making such rapid progress in Europe is that it is aggressively filling the spiritual vacuum left by the spread of materialism. Maybe Buddhism could supply philosophical arguments to help prop up Christianity.

- Is it possible to be 'culturally Anglican' while being philosophically Buddhist? Although the Church of England is in a state of meltdown, there is much in historic Anglican culture that is worth preserving. The basic tenet of Anglicanism is 'Latitudinarianism' - which means you can believe anything you like as long as you don't get too fanatical. Since it's possible to be a Church of England Druid, maybe you can also be a Church of England Buddhist.

Related Posts

Islam will Dominate: the Islamic threat to Buddhism

Rational Buddhism versus Irrational Islam

Buddhist, Darwin, Jew and Gay free zones in Islamic Britain.

Islam and the three poisons of the mind

Rational Buddhism

Civilization: Is the West History? - Episode 2 Science - by Niall Ferguson

2011-04-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

The West and the Rest, Niall Ferguson, Second Episode, Channel 4

Here's an update on my recent post about Islamic attempts to impose theocratic obscurantism on the educational system, and especially death threats against people who support Darwin's theory of evolution.

Is the West History?

There was an interesting program on Channel 4 by historian Niall Ferguson on the development of science in the West and its demise in the Islamic world. The program (episode two of the series on civilization) mainly concentrated on the period following the Muslim defeat at the Siege of Vienna, contrasting the secularising and technological progressive policies of European governments typified by Frederick the Great of Prussia, with the degenerate, corrupt and religiously reactionary state of the Ottoman Empire.

However, what seemed to be missing from the program was a sense of the theological underpinning and historical depth of the Islamic aversion to rationalism. The origins of Islam's problem with science go back long before the Ottoman's imperial overstretch was brought to an end by Jan Sobieski' s artillery bombardments and cavalry charges outside the Gates of Vienna in 1683.

'Sheltered in the strong arms of science'

Previous authors have commented on Islamic backwardness in science, for example this passage by Winston Churchill, written over a century ago:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.

Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome." - Winston Churchill; (Source: The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 London)

Bottom of the heap.

More Recently Bernard Lewis has pointed out that not only has the Islamic world fallen behind the Judeo-Christian West, it is now also falling behind the Hindu-Buddhist Far East:

"There was worse to come. It was bad enough for Muslims to feel poor and weak after centuries of being rich and strong, to lose the position of leadership that they had come to regard as their right, and to be reduced to the role of followers of the West. But the twentieth century, particularly the second half, brought further humiliation—the awareness that they were no longer even the first among followers but were falling back in a lengthening line of eager and more successful Westernizers, notably in East Asia. The rise of Japan had been an encouragement but also a reproach.

The later rise of other Asian economic powers brought only reproach. The proud heirs of ancient civilizations had gotten used to hiring Western firms to carry out tasks of which their own contractors and technicians were apparently incapable. Now Middle Eastern rulers and businessmen found themselves inviting contractors and technicians from Korea—only recently emerged from Japanese colonial rule—to perform these tasks. Following is bad enough; limping in the rear is far worse.

By all the standards that matter in the modern world—economic development and job creation, literacy, educational and scientific achievement, political freedom and respect for human rights—what was once a mighty civilization has indeed fallen low. "

Genetic dumbing down?

One reason put forward for the backwardness of the Islamic world is genetic damage, and consequent low intelligence, caused by successive generations of cousin marriage. Marriage between close relatives is the norm among Muslims, but regarded as taboo, pathological, and sometimes illegal in most other cultures.

"Nicolai Sennels is a Danish psychologist who has done extensive research into a little-known problem in the Muslim world: the disastrous results of Muslim inbreeding brought about by the marriage of first-cousins.

This practice, which has been prohibited in the Judeo-Christian tradition since the days of Moses, was sanctioned by Muhammad and has been going on now for 50 generations (1,400 years) in the Muslim world.

This practice of inbreeding will never go away in the Muslim world since Muhammad is the ultimate example and authority on all matters, including marriage.

The massive inbreeding in Muslim culture may well have done virtually irreversible damage to the Muslim gene pool, including extensive damage to its intelligence, sanity, and health.

According to Sennels, close to half of all Muslims in the world are inbred. In Pakistan , the numbers approach 70%. Even in England , more than half of Pakistani immigrants are married to their first cousins, and in Denmark the number of inbred Pakistani immigrants is around 40%.

The numbers are equally devastating in other important Muslim countries: 67% in Saudi Arabia , 64% in Jordan and Kuwait , 63% in Sudan , 60% in Iraq , and 54% in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

...Lowered intellectual capacity is another devastating consequence of Muslim marriage patterns. According to Sennels, research shows that children of consanguineous marriages lose 10-16 points off their IQ and that social abilities develop much slower in inbred babies.

The risk of having an IQ lower than 70, the official demarcation for being classified as “retarded,” increases by an astonishing 400 percent among children of cousin marriages." - Muslim Healthcare Study

Nobel Prize Winners and Patents

It's true that early Islamic culture had some scientific successes (though these are sometimes exaggerated). However for that last 800 years, Islamic culture has been stagnant. The full appalling extent of the problem is revealed by the fact that Muslims, who are twenty per cent of the world's population, have only produced six Nobel prizewinners, whereas the Jews who are a mere 0.2% have produced about 160 prizewinners!

Similarly, the program stated that tiny Israel had registered over a hundred times more patents a year than Iran. Ferguson drew a striking parallel to Israel, surrounded by hordes of hostile Muslims, and the city of Vienna besieged by the Ottomans. Both are outposts of western civilisation threatened with extermination by more numerous primitive adversaries, and relying on superior brainpower and technology to stay in existence.

Nature or Nurture?

But can Islamic backwardness be put down solely or even mainly to genetic deterioration caused by Islamic marriage customs? Although Muslims who don't marry blood relatives may be a minority, the vast size of the Muslim population should ensure that there are still plenty of people around who aren't genetically damaged. I would suggest that cultural factors are at least, if not more, important than genetic determinism, in particular the complete rejection of rationalism by Islam in the later Middle Ages.

How the Koran trumps Reason

One surprising feature of the Islam vs. Darwin affair was that the orthodox Muslims didn't even attempt to argue with the heretical Darwinist - they just threatened to kill him! At least Christan creationists and Intelligent Design proponents attempt to refute the evolutionists by 'rational' arguments. But this approach just wasn't employed by the theocrats. It was a straightforward case of 'If you disagree with the Koran we'll kill you!"

The justification for these death threats is that the very foundations of science - the laws of nature and even the operation of cause and effect - are regarded as heresy by pious Muslims. This pre-rational worldview is so alien from that of other cultures that it takes some getting used to before one can appreciate the full implications. It's a point that wasn't covered in the program. Here's the historical background from American Thinker:

Islamic rejection of Reason in favor of Revelation

"Any hope of the development of a rational tradition within Islam was dashed with the rise of Caliph Ja'afar al-Mutawakkil (847-861). Prior to al-Mutawakkil's rule, a rationalist philosophy had begun to develop under the Mu'tazilite school of interpretation, which advocated for a created, as opposed to an uncreated, Quran. But Caliph al-Mutawakkil condemned the Mu'tazilite school, which opened the door for the rival Ash'arite interpretation, founded by al-Ash'ari (d. 935), to eventually take preeminence within Sunni Islam - a position of dominance it has retained over the centuries.

By 1200 A.D., any hope of recovering a semblance of rational Islamic philosophy was seemingly forever lost.

It was the work of the very Islamic philosophers that Ramadan cites that prompted Europe Christian thinkers to make a break with their Muslim counterparts. Historically, the views of the Ash'arite school were rooted in the theological dogma of "volunteerism", which holds that rather than created objects having inherent existence, Allah constantly recreates each atom anew at every moment according to his arbitrary will. This, of course, undermines the basis for what Westerners understand as natural laws.

From volunteerism sprung another irrational idea amongst Muslim thinkers - occasionalism - that further prevented the development of rationalism within the Islamic tradition. Occasionalism is the belief that in the natural world, what is perceived as cause and effect between objects is mere appearance, not reality. Instead, only Allah truly acts with real effect; all seemingly natural observances of causation are merely manifestations of Allah's habits, for Allah simultaneously creates both the cause and the effect according to his arbitrary will. This view is best expressed by one of the Islamic philosophers cited by Ramadan, al-Ghazali (1059-1111), in his book, The Incoherence of the Philosophers:

The connection between what is habitually believed to be the cause and what is habitually believed to be the effect is not necessary for us. But in the case of two things, neither of which is the other and where neither the affirmation nor the negation of the one entails the affirmation or the negation of the other, the existence or non-existence of the one does not necessitate the existence or non-existence of the other; for example, the quenching of thirst and drinking, satiety and eating, burning and contact with fire, light and the rising of the sun, death and decapitation.... On the contrary, it is within God's power to create satiety without eating, death without decapitation, to prolong life after decapitation and so on in the case of all concomitant things. (quoted in "Causation in Islamic Thought" from the Dictionary of the History of Ideas)

Using al-Ghazali's own analogy of decapitation, according to the occasionalist view, when a sword struck off a person's head causing death, it only merely appeared that the sword was the cause of the decapitation: the real and primary cause of the decapitation and the death was the will of Allah, not the sword. The sword, in fact, played no part at all. Had Allah willed it so, the sword could have cut through the neck without decapitation or death. To believe otherwise, Islamic occasionalism held, would be a limitation of the omnipotence of Allah. As with volunteerism, the consequences of occasionalism had catastrophic effects for the development of empirical science in the Islamic world.

Other problems developed within Islamic philosophy which prevented the rise of rationalism. Perhaps the most notable following volunteerism and occasionalism is the "dual-truth" theory advanced by Averroes, who with Avicenna is considered one of the two most important Islamic philosophers in history.

In an attempt to navigate between faith and rationality, Averroes argued that what may be true in the realm of religion may be contrary to what is true in nature. Thus, the Quranic maxim, "there is no compulsion in religion," (Sura 2:256) can be entirely true from a religious sense; but in the real world and in the course of jihad, compulsion may not only be required, but entirely justifiable. The dual-truth theory was vigorously rejected by Aquinas, and eventually both Roman Catholic, and later, Protestant theology acknowledged both the authoritative nature and the necessary agreement between special revelation (Scripture) and general revelation (nature).

Neoplatonism and its associated ideas were also commonplace to Islamic philosophy, particularly the recurrent eternal cycles of history (Ibn Khaldun), which stands opposed to the linear view of history that is integral to the development of modern science. But science and rationalism were not the only victims of the problems of Islamic philosophy: free will and ethics also became targets. Islamic occasionalism led to fatalism and ethical positivism, as articulated in recent centuries by Muhammad as-Sanusi (b. 1780):

It is impossible for the Most High to determine an act as obligatory or forbidden... for the sake of any objective, since all acts are equal in that they are his creation and production. Therefore the specification of certain acts as obligatory and others as forbidden or with any other determination takes place by his pure choice, which has no cause. Intelligibility has no place at all in it rather it can be known only by revealed-law sharīa. (quoted in Joseph Kenny, Islamic Monotheism: Principles and Consequences)

Again, this is standard Ash'arite doctrine, which is the predominant view of Sunni Islam, not an obscure element within Muslim thought. Because there are no objective standards of good or evil, even with Allah, the only resort to maintain ethics is shari'a; and as-Sanusi makes clear, there is no role at all for rationality in ethics. Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328), the favorite medieval theologian of Wahhabis and jihadists alike, contended that there was no role or ability for man to understand Allah; man's sole response was to obey shari'a, making any use of rational faculties irrelevant (see Reilly's article on this point). This is why the reinstitution of shari'a is so critical to the current Islamist project - there are no other alternatives except a complete reconstruction of Islam itself.

Tariq Ramadan is well aware of these problems within Islamic philosophy, as evidenced by his vocal appeals to reopen the "doors of ijtihad" to allow for new interpretations of Islam to escape the irrationalism of the principal ancient schools of belief. But instead of acknowledging those problems and ignoring the insurmountable philosophical obstacles posed by his own Islamic tradition, Ramadan shamelessly attempts to claim for Islamic traditions a commonality with the fruits of Western rationality.

Rather than focus on differences, the true dialogue between the Pope and Islam, and between secularized societies and Islamic ones, should emphasize our common, universal values: mutual respect of human rights, basic freedoms, rule of law and democracy.

The reality is that none of these values - human rights, basic freedoms, rule of law, or democracy - actually exists anywhere in the Muslim world (even in "secular" Turkey) to the degree that they are practiced in or are recognizable to the West, nor are they identifiable in the 1,400 years of Islamic history. (In subsequent essays I hope to show that Islamic theology itself negates these very concepts, making any rapprochement between Islam and Western values impossible without abandoning the most basic tenets of Islam itself.)

As Robert Reilly notes in his article, this acknowledgement of the intrinsic problems of Islamic theology and its incompatibility with Western values is not just a view exclusive to just infidels, but honest Muslim intellectuals as well. He quotes the Iranian thinker Abdolkarim Soroush, who admits:

Some of the understandings that exist in our society today of the Imams . . . or even of the concept of God are not particularly compatible with an accountable state and do not allow society to grow and develop in the modern-day sense."

Pope Benedict's Regensburg Address on Islam and Rationalism

Pope Benedict gave a lecture at the University of Regensburg that hinted that Islam might be intrinically irrational and violent. The result was rage and riots throughout the Muslim world.

From Robert R. Reilly

Finally, a leader has spoken about the real, essential differences in the struggle between the West and Islam, as it emanates from a contest within Islam itself over the most important things. With startling—indeed alarming—clarity, Pope Benedict XVI told his audience in Regensburg, Germany, that not only is violence in spreading faith unreasonable and therefore against God, but that a conception of God without reason, or above reason, leads to that very violence. To ensure everyone knew what he was talking about, the pope quoted from a 14th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, who was besieged by Islamic forces attempting to conquer Constantinople. The emperor denounced the effort to "spread by the sword the faith he [Mohammed] preached."

The pope has raised a very volatile question: Is, in fact, the God of Islam without reason, or above it? Is the Muslim God unreasonable? Is Islam, therefore, based upon a theological deformation? The pope's allusion to the teachings of eleventh-century Islamic philosopher Ibn Hazn—"God is not bound even by his own word"—suggests that possibility. However, it is more than a possibility. It is a core teaching of one of the predominant strains of Islam, if not the predominant strain. Has this always been so? How did such a conception of God develop? Is it still possible to talk about this without threats of murder? Benedict is trying to start a conversation with Islam, and it is the only one really worth having.

The pope's remarks require a good deal of explication in the context of Islamic philosophy and theology. They need to be understood within the broader perspective of a struggle that has taken place since Islam's inception over the status of reason and revelation. Benedict has essentially taken sides in the most fundamental debate that has ever been held within the Islamic world, and that is why his words generated such vehemence.

According to the pope, making either reason or revelation autonomous leads to a distortion of what each is. Reason raises questions that it cannot answer, and revelation's answers cannot be understood without reason. Divorcing reason from faith, or faith from reason, leads to catastrophe; they must be in partnership. Benedict speaks of dehellenization—meaning the loss of reason, the gift of the Greeks—as one of the West's main problems. Less well-known is the dehellenization that has afflicted Islam—its denigration of and divorce from reason. This took place over an argument, already begun in the seventh and eighth centuries, about the status of reason in relation to God's omnipotence, and decisively affected the character of the Islamic world. The struggle had its roots in a profound disagreement over who God is.

The side in this debate most easily recognizable to a Westerner was the Mu'tazilite school, composed of the Muslim rationalist philosophers who fought for the primacy of reason. The Mu'tazilites held that God is not only power; He is also reason. Man's reason is a gift from God, who expects man to use it to come to know Him. The status of reason determines man's relationship to revelation. God, being reason, would not expect man to accept anything contrary to it. Through reason, man is also able to understand God as manifested in His creation. God's laws are the laws of nature, which are also manifested in the Sharia (the divine path). Therefore, the Mu'tazilites held that the statements in the Qur'an must be in accord with reason. This means that the Qur'an, a document revealed in history, is open to interpretation. If this sounds familiar, it should: It reflects the same powerful influence Greek philosophy had upon Islam as it had upon Christianity, and which carried within it the impetus to reconcile reason and revelation.

The Mu'tazilite advocacy of reason succeeded to the extent that the teaching of a created Qur'an was enshrined as a state doctrine, proclaimed in 827 under Caliph al-Ma'mn. The Mu'tazilites fought for the primacy of reason and actually required religious judges to swear an oath that the Qur'an had been created. Their opponents, who believed in the primacy of power and the uncreated Qur'an, were punished and imprisoned. However, after the reign of Harun al-Watiq, the tables were turned on the Mu'tazilites by Caliph Ja'afar al-Mutawakkil (847–861), who made holding the Mu'tazilite doctrine a crime punishable by death. This did not end the Mu'tazilite school of thought (some fled to the more hospitable Shia areas), nor did it prevent the flourishing of the Greek-influenced faylasufs (philosophers) who followed them, such as al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes. However, the long process of dehellenization and its resulting ossification had begun.

The victorious view developed a theological basis for the primacy of power by claiming that the revelation of Mohammed emphasizes most particularly one attribute of God—His omnipotence. Although all monotheistic religions hold that, in order to be one, God must be omnipotent, this argument reduced God to His omnipotence by concentrating exclusively on His unlimited power, as against His reason. God's "reasons" are unknowable by man. God is not shackled by reason; He rules as He pleases. He is pure will. There is no rational order invested in the universe upon which one can rely, only the second-to-second manifestation of God's will.

God is so powerful that every instant is the equivalent of a miracle. Nothing intervenes or has an independent or even semi-autonomous existence. In philosophical language, this view holds that God is the primary cause of everything, and there are no secondary causes. Therefore, what may seem to be "natural laws," such as the laws of physics, gravity, etc., are really nothing more than God's customs, which He is at complete liberty to break or change at any moment. As Benedict points out, this is called "volunteerism."

The consequences of this view are momentous. If creation exists simply as a succession of miraculous moments, it cannot be apprehended by reason. Other religions, including Christianity, recognize miracles. But they recognize them precisely as temporary and extraordinary suspensions of the natural law. In fact, that is what defines them as miracles. One admits to the possibility of a miracle only after discounting every possible explanation of its occurrence by natural causes. In this school of Islamic thought, there are no natural causes to discount. As a result, reality becomes incomprehensible. If unlimited will is the exclusive constituent of reality, there is really nothing left to reason about, and the uncreated Qur'an is not open to interpretation.

The early–tenth-century thinker Abu al-Hasan al-Ashari elaborated a metaphysics for the anti-rational view by using early Greek atomistic philosophy to assert that reality is composed of atoms. The configuration of these atoms at any given moment makes things what they are. In Islam in the World, British analyst Malise Ruthven explains: "The Asharis rationalised God's omnipotence within an atomistic theory of creation, according to which the world was made up of the discrete points in space and time whose only connection was the will of God, which created them anew at every moment."

For example, there is a collection of atoms that is a plant. Does the plant remain a plant because it has the nature of a plant, or because Allah wishes it to be a plant from this moment to the next? The Asharites said it is only a plant for the moment. For the plant to remain a plant depends on the will of Allah, and if you say it has to remain a plant because it has the nature of plant, this is shirk—blasphemy.

The catastrophic result of this view is the denial of the relationship between cause and effect. In The Incoherence of the Philosophers, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111), perhaps the single most influential Muslim thinker after Mohammed, vehemently rejected Greek thought: "The source of their infidelity was their hearing terrible names such as Socrates and Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle." Al-Ghazali insisted that God is not bound by any order, and that there is, therefore, no "natural" sequence of cause and effect, as in fire burning cotton or, more colorfully, as in "the purging of the bowels and the using of a purgative." Things do not act according to their own natures but only according to God's will at the moment. There are only juxtapositions of discrete events that make it appear that the fire is burning the cotton, but God could just as well do otherwise. (This doctrine is known as occasionalism.) In other words, there is no continuous narrative of cause and effect tying these moments together in a comprehensible way. In attacking the Mu'tazilites, the Asharites, in the words of Mohammed Khair, wished "to free God's saving power from the shackles of causality."

Equally as damaging to the status of reason, al-Ghazali wrote in Moderation in Belief that reason is so infected by man's self-interest that it cannot know moral principles; they can only be known through revelation. Since reason is not a source of moral truth, concludes al-Ghazali, "No obligations flow from reason but from the Sharia [the divinely ordained path]." With this, he despatches Aristotle's Ethics and all other moral philosophy.

To outsiders, this capricious dimension of Islam was clear as long ago as the Middle Ages when the great Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135–1204) spoke of his experiences in Cairo to illustrate the way some Muslims think. Every morning the caliph rides through Cairo, and every morning he takes the same route. However, said Maimonides, tomorrow he could take a different route. Why? Because he is the caliph and he can do as he wills. Every morning the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It has happened for years; it happened today. But tomorrow it might rise in the south and set in the north. That depends on the will of Allah, and there is no saying that it will not. As the Qur'an states, "Dost thou not know that God has the power to will anything?" (2:106). Maimonides concluded that "the thing which exists with certain constant and permanent forms, dimensions, and properties [in nature] only follows the direction of habit . . . . On this foundation their whole fabric is constructed."

This conception of God directed man's relationship to the Almighty in a specific way. A God who has no reasons cannot be known by reason. This view can and did lead to a rich vein of mysticism, most especially in the Sufism of al-Ghazali, but it also presents a problem. How should one behave toward an unreasoning God? Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328), a medieval Muslim thinker who profoundly influenced the founder of Wahhabism and who has been resuscitated by the Islamists today, answered: Man's task is not to know God. God is unknowable; do not even try to know God. Man's job is not to love God. Man cannot love what he does not know. Man's job is to obey. Submit. Reason plays no role, and free will is denigrated. In his attack on philosophy titled Kuzari, Judah ha-Levi, a Jewish follower of al-Ghazali, reached the logical conclusion as to how man ought to approach the revelations of such a deity: "I consider him to have attained the highest degree of perfection who is convinced of religious truths without having scrutinized them and reasoned over them." (One wonders how one becomes "convinced" of something without having thought about it.) There could hardly be a more radical rejection of what Benedict calls "the reasonableness of faith."

Compare this relationship to the standard definition of a Christian vocation, which is expressed in this logical order: to know, to love, and to serve God. First, knowledge of God is required. How can one love what one does not know? Of course, it is assumed that a finite creature such as man can only comprehend a small part of an infinite God, but he can know enough to inspire love. God is knowable. If one knows God, then one loves Him because God is goodness. In turn, the impulse of that love is to serve. One is naturally drawn to serve what one loves. The expression of this vocation is internally coherent and logically ordered. It is based upon a certain view of who God is and how man is capable of freely responding to Him through the use of his reason and free will.

To understand the ultimate significance of the Asharite and al-Ghazali's teaching of an unreasoning God, it may be helpful to contrast it to the Christian teaching that was similarly tempted to such extremes, but resisted them. Why, for instance, did this exclusive preoccupation with God's omnipotence not afflict Christianity, which is also monotheistic? Christianity holds that God is omnipotent and the primary cause of all things, as well. In fact, as Benedict pointed out in Regensburg, there were strong tendencies within Christianity to move in the very same direction, including in the teaching of Duns Scotus. The anti-rational view was violently manifested in the millenarian movements of the Middle Ages, and within the movement that was known as fideism—faith alone, sola scriptura. In its most radical form, this school held that the Scriptures are enough. Forget reason, Greek philosophy, and Thomas Aquinas. However, the anti-rationalist view in its more extreme forms has never predominated in Christianity, and it was considered broadly heretical.

As Benedict makes clear, the reason Christianity was insulated from an obsession with God's omnipotence was the revelation of Christ as Logos in the Gospel of St. John. If Christ is Logos—if God introduces Himself as ratio—then God is not only all-powerful, He is reason. While the Mu'tazilites claimed something similar, they had no scriptural authority to confirm their position, while their opponents had many to oppose it.

In addition, Christian revelation claims that everything was created through Christ as Logos. Since it was through Logos that all things were created, creation carries the imprint of its creator as reason. Nature bespeaks an intelligibility that derives from a transcendent source. Benedict recently reiterated this view when he referred to the "world as a product of creative reason." The laws of nature are not a challenge to God's authority but an expression of it. Reason and Christian revelation are compatible.
Ultimately, this theological view developed into the realist metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas, which then became the foundation for modern science, as Rev. Stanley Jaki, a Hungarian theologian and physicist, has explained in his voluminous writings on the origins of modern science. He has laid out the reasons modern science was stillborn in the Muslim world after what seemed to be its real start (see his extraordinary monograph, Jesus, Islam, Science). No one offers a more profound understanding of the consequences of the view of God as pure will than Father Jaki has.

The metaphysical support for natural law not only laid the foundations for modern science, but also provided the basis for the gradual development of constitutional government. The primacy of power in Islamic thought undermined a similar prospect. If one does not allow for the existence of secondary causes, one cannot develop natural law. If one cannot develop natural law, one cannot conceive of a constitutional political order in which man—through his reason—creates laws to govern himself and behave freely. Because democracies base their political order on reason and free will, and leave in play questions that Islamists believe have been definitively settled by revelation, Islamists regard democracies as their natural and fatal enemies.

The curious thing is that it does not matter whether one's view of reality as pure will has its origin in a deformed theology or a totally secular ideology, such as Hegel's or Hobbes's: The political consequences are the same. As Rev. James V. Schall has shown, the notion of pure will as the basis of reality results in tyrannical rule. Disordered will, unfettered by right reason, is the political problem.

Radical Muslims translate their version of God's omnipotence into a politics of unlimited power. As God's instruments, they are channels for this power. Once the primacy of force is posited, terrorism becomes the next logical step to power, as it did in the 20th-century secular ideologies of power: Nazism and Marxism–Leninism. This is what led Osama bin Laden to embrace the astonishing statement of his spiritual godfather, Abdullah Azzam, which bin Laden quoted in the November 2001 video, released after 9/11: "Terrorism is an obligation in Allah's religion." This can only be true—that violence in spreading faith is an obligation—if, as Benedict said in Regensburg, God is without reason.

The problem today is that the side of reason in Islam lost. The ultimate consequences of the rejection of reason and the loss of causality are playing themselves out across the Muslim world. As Fouad Ajami recently observed, "Wherever I go in the Islamic world, it's the same problem: cause and effect; cause and effect."

It is not that the side of reason is not still there—there are some extraordinarily intelligent Muslim scholars who would like to see a neo-Mu'tazilite movement within Islam, a restoration of the primacy of reason so that they can re-open the doors to interpretation and develop some kind of natural-law foundation for humane, political, constitutional rule. According to Iranian thinker Abdolkarim Soroush, "Some of the understandings that exist in our society today of the Imams . . . or even of the concept of God are not particularly compatible with an accountable state and do not allow society to grow and develop in the modern-day sense." Reformist Tunisian-born thinker Latif Lakhdar calls for a revival of "Mu'tazila and philosophical thought that subjected the holy writings on which the religion is based to interpretation by the human mind." There are Muslims who will say these things, but many of them, like Soroush and Lakhdar, are in the West for their own protection.

Is there a constituency within the Muslim world that can elaborate a theology that allows for the restoration of reason, a rehellenization of Islam with Allah as ratio? It is idle to pretend that it would take less than a sea change for this to happen. If it does not, it is hard to envisage upon what basis the dialogue with Islam could take place. There are many Muslims (in Turkey and in the developing democracies of Indonesia and Malaysia, to say nothing of the democratic life followed by the huge Muslim population in India) who want to enter the modern world—with its modern science and modern political institutions—and also keep their faith. Unfortunately, the ideas gaining traction today are not theirs. That is the crisis, which is now spilling over into the West. In order to meet it, Benedict is telling us we have urgent reason to regain our own faith and to raise these all-important questions with them.

Robert R. Reilly was a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and served as his liaison to the Catholic Church.

Fatalism, denial of freewill and mental stagnation.
Pope Benedict's criticism of Islam is taken further in this excellent article by Rebecca Bynum , excerpts below (my emphases):

"...It is my contention that where there is conflict between the will of man and the will of Allah, the will of Allah always triumphs in Islamic philosophy because the power of Allah is thought of as absolute: he does not curtail or restrain his power in any way. In other words, Allah does not respect the free will of man, in fact, human free will is illusory at best.

By this logic, all three thousand people who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 as a result of jihad action would have died at that hour regardless. And furthermore, because Allah did not intervene, it was Allah’s will that it happened. The jihadis who perpetrated this act, were only puppets on a stage, obeying the will of Allah according to a pre-written script. They did not cause all those deaths and all that destruction; rather, according to Islamic logic, Allah caused it as punishment for our sins, the sins of America as a collective entity.

This further reduces to: everything that occurs in the reality of the material world we live in is a direct result of Allah’s will. Human will is but an instrument of the will of Allah and therefore does not have an independent existence in the overall trend of Islamic thought. Even though the concept of “testing” is present, Allah’s will is never subservient to human will.

I contend this is the equivalent to asserting not that everything is God’s will, but rather that nothing is God’s will, or even that there is no God, because there is no distinction between what is and what is not God’s will in the reality of the material world: the good and the evil deeds of man are both equally and ultimately the result of the will of God.

In this view, as the Pope pointed out, God’s purpose is so transcendent as to be unknowable, which is to say, God is unknowable to the individual. And again there is no practical difference between that and the assertion that God does not exist, for His will, and therefore God himself, according to Islam, cannot be known. This is equivalent to saying that the difference between good and evil cannot be known, and this is so regardless of the existence of a list of accepted and prohibited actions put forth as “God’s will” by Islam on the basis of Muhammad’s example as the ultimate arbiter between truth and error. Goodness and Truth do not have an independent existence in Islam; they are entirely dependent on the Islamic creed.

Furthermore, according to Winston Churchill, the Muslim belief in predestination engenders a “fearful, fatalistic apathy” which “paralyses the social development of those who follow it,” for Allah’s will is fixed in a one-size-fits-all pattern and is not unique to the individual believer. The individual’s relationship to Allah is bound completely by the believer’s obedience to Islam. Therefore, believers in Islam are actually barred from the greatest adventure known to man, that of finding God (goodness, truth and beauty) as an individual experiential reality. This is so because Allah’s will is so transcendent as to be incomprehensible. Thus the “testing” of the believer is reduced to a test of conformity to the creed rather than a testing of the ability to discover what is right and true uniquely for himself.

This is equivalent to Allah is Dead. The most heinous acts, collective and individual, can be rationalized as “Allah’s will” and this of course is a prescription for social chaos. The violence and attitudes that the canonical texts of Islam naturally give rise to are repeatedly demonstrated wherever Islam is suddenly unconstrained, as with the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime, or the pseudo-nationalism of the PLO and its many security forces, as is clearly observed in Iraq and Gaza today. Then consider Condoleeza Rice’s wishful and bizarre comparison between the “Palestinians” and America’s Founding Fathers.

According to Richard Weaver the endowing of cultural forms with the idea of immanence historically gives rise to social cruelty. It is the deification of a cultural system, such as the deification of the Church during the years of the Inquisition, or the deification of a political system such as communism, that creates conditions in which human sacrifice, often on a massive scale, becomes justified. In this view, the cultural structure essentially replaces the concept of a living God (dealing directly with autonomous human beings) and thus human freedom, happiness and ultimately lives are sacrificed to the cultural form in proportion to the fanaticism engendered by the belief in it..."

"...Another bedrock problem lies in the failure of Islam to recognize God as a self-limited or self-limiting being, at least in so far as He acts within the material world of time and space (both obviously limiting factors separating the finite from the infinite). The existence of natural law is further evidence of this. Christianity recognizes a God who is not whimsical, who has set his laws in motion and does not violate them. Thus, these laws may be discovered by His reasoning creature and therefore science, and all that flows from science, becomes possible because it is conceivable.

Another limitation of God is the divine respect evidently given to human free will. Indeed, in the western world at least, if someone claims to be coerced by God, (“God made me do it”) we consider that person to be of doubtful sanity. However, according to Islamic thought, Allah is not limited by natural law, or by reason, or even by goodness and truth...."

".... Allah demands unquestioning obedience and total sacrifice, including the sacrifice of the ability to know good from evil as an individual, private matter, for the will of Allah is not a personal experience. The Islamic system has totally usurped the place of the living God for the believer: worship and obedience are one..."

"... But when religious forms, in their arrogance, become a substitute for God, then the potential for evil and the cruelty of cultural coercion rapidly ensue. In order for cultural progress to occur, man must be free to distinguish the greater from the lesser. For example, which is the greater evil: adultery itself, or the stoning as punishment? Jews and Christians answered long ago: the stoning is the greater evil. Muslims, on the contrary, and despite their modern protestations that “this is not the true Islam,” are forever barred from making such a judgment, because the will of Allah is absolutely transcendent and unreachable through the mind.

Therefore, what western reason would deem psychopathological murder/suicide, Islam calls the “martyrdom of the sainted” without guile. The reason of Islam exists entirely within the bounds of Islam. A bridge of reason simply does not exist between our two worlds, as it does not exist between the individual Muslim and the will of Allah.

And reason cannot compromise with unreason without destroying the basis for its existence. By the same token, unreason cannot become reasonable without destroying itself as well. There is simply no way the hoped-for “reform” of Islam by way of reason would not end in Islam’s ultimate destruction, but this is not an outcome to be feared. It should be welcomed."

So what are the implications for Buddhism?

Islam, and to a much lesser extent the Creationists of the Bible belt, are classic examples of how not to handle the dialog between science and religion. When religion attempts to take on science and reason, religion becomes discredited and has to retreat into obscurantism, and in the case of Islam into thuggery, intimidation and outright terrorism.

It is worthwhile examining the similarities and differences between Buddhism and science, and how these can be handled more skillfully than by the anti-rational faith-based dogmatic religions. See Rational Buddhism.

Islam and the three poisons of the mind

More Islamic Irrationalism You really couldn't make it up!

Buddhism Subject Index

Buddhist Mantra Videos

2011-03-12T14:56:00.000-08:00

Vajrasattva Mantra Song and Video

Manjushri Mantra Song and Video -1

Manjushri Mantra Song and Video - 2

Green Tara Mantra Song and Video

Medicine Buddha

Migtsema - Tsongkapa song 1

Migtsema - Lama Tsong Khapa song 2

Great Compassion Mantra Song and Video

Buddhist, Jew, Darwin and Gay Free Zones in Islamic Britain

2011-03-07T11:45:00.000-08:00

East London declared a Gay Free Zone

Homophobic Jihad
Since my previous post on the subject of the Stealth Jihad in Europe (Buddhists, Dawkins and Gays worried by Islam in Europe), the situation has deteriorated rapidly. Things are especially bad in East London, where the Muslim population has become sufficiently numerous to impose Sharia on everyone else. Muslims have declared East London a 'Gay Free Zone', with savage homophobic attacks by packs of Muslim thugs forcing much of the gay community to leave the area.

The once liberal, tolerant, multicultural and vibrantly diverse cities of Western Europe are rapidly turning into front lines of the Global Jihad, as an aggressively expanding, violent, monocultural Islam destroys all alternative belief-systems and lifestyles.

No Religions other than Islam to be taught
Teaching of any doctrine in conflict with Islam is likely to bring about intimidation, death threats and vicious attacks by 'street-jihadists'. Also in East London, a teacher was brutally attacked by Muslims for 'teaching other religions to Muslim girls'. So that means that Buddhism is off the school curriculum on the grounds of 'health and safety'.

Oxford, now a Jew Free Zone

Universities come under Islamic control, with Jew and Darwin-free zones
Higher up the educational system, universities are being bought up by oil-rich Muslims and forced to teach an Islamic syllabus by approved academics, with Oxford University likely to become a Jew-free zone.

The Islamic jihad against Darwinism is proceeding rapidly, with teaching of evolution likely to go the way of teaching any other religion than Islam. A prominent British imam has been forced to retract his claims that Islam is compatible with Darwin's theory of evolution after receiving death threats.

Dr Usama Hasan, a physics lecturer at Middlesex University and a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, was intending to return to Masjid al-Tawhid, a mosque in Leyton, East London, for the first time since he delivered a lecture there entitled "Islam and the theory of evolution".

But police advised him not to attend after becoming concerned for his safety. Instead his father posted a notice on his behalf expressing regret over his comments. "I seek Allah's forgiveness for my mistakes and apologise for any offence caused," the statement read.

There has been a sharp upturn in hostility to teaching evolution in the classroom and it’s mostly coming from Islamic students, so it's probably only a matter of time before biology teachers get beaten up as well.

Mushrik Free Zone

No Buddhism please, we're the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The BBC seems to have declared itself a Buddhist (and Sikh and Hindu) Free Zone, with Islam taking precedence over all other non-Christian religions. "Across the first four weeks of 2011, no programmes or series on BBC Radio 4 will have been wholly devoted to any of the other non-Christian religious communities of the U.K. Yes, Hindus, Jews, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists have all gone uncatered for by the allegedly diversity-loving BBC. Only Islam seems to interest the channel's programme makers. "

This bias has been getting worse for several years. Sikh and Hindu leaders have long complained that a disproportionate number of programmes have been made about Islam, at the expense of programmes on their own faiths.

It isn't clear why Islam should have such a strong stranglehold on the BBC, but Cranmer has suggested that Saudi oil money may be part of the explanation.

Darwin's universal acid
Although at present Islam seems unstoppable, with its remorseless use of bribery, corruption, intimidation, thuggery and murder to achieve global domination, its paranoia towards the 'blasphemous' theory of evolution reveals a weak spot, an Achilles heel.

Daniel Dennett has described Darwin's theory of evolution as a universal acid eating through traditional religious ideas. This may be true to greater or lesser extents for different religions. For example, the theory of evolution is no threat to Buddhism. Also, most mainstream versions of Christianity can live with Darwinism, with the exception of a few benighted Baptists in bucolic backwaters such as Kansas.

However, Darwinism is totally incompatible with Islam, because orthodox Muslims MUST believe that the Koran is the literal word of God.

This absolute literalism means that any flaw in the Koran reveals the entire book as a confidence trick, and by extension the entire cult of Islam as a scam. If Darwinism is true, then the Koran is false. There is no possibility of compromise as there is with the Bible, which is 'divinely inspired' but written by humans. Whenever the Koran comes into conflict with science, the Koran must take precedence if Islam is to survive.

This is why Muslim dawa organisations spend so much effort in attempting to discredit Darwinism. There are, of course, other contradictions and inconsistencies in the Koran, but none as potentially damaging to the ideology of Islam as its glaring conflict with the biological sciences.

GAY-FREE ZONE UPDATE 19-MAY-2011

UPDATE ON ISLAMIC ATTACK ON ENGLISH RELIGIOUS EDUCATION TEACHER

UPDATE - CLIMATE OF FEAR IN LONDON

UPDATE - LONDON MOSQUE IDENTIFIED AS EPICENTER OF HOMOPHOBIC 'STREET JIHAD'

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Buddhists, Dawkins and Gays worried by Islam in Europe

2010-04-08T13:16:00.000-07:00

Stop the Warsaw Megamosque

The rapidly accelerating growth of Islam in Europe has produced a few unexpected alliances: Buddhists have joined Polish Nationalists in protesting the construction of a Mosque in Warsaw; atheist Richard Dawkins is having second thoughts about the collapse of Christianity in Britain, and the English Defence League - vilified by the Islamists as a bunch of football hooligans - has formed a gay division.

Posters in Warsaw

Buddhists join Polish crusade against Megamosque in Warsaw
The Polish activist group Europe of the Future held a protest on 27th March against the proposal to build a new Saudi-financed mosque in Warsaw. The predominantly Catholic Poles objected to the fact that the Saudis could build triumphalist mosques in European capitals, but Christians were not allowed to build churches or even possess Bibles in Saudi Arabia.

Interestingly, a Buddhist organisation played a leading role in the protest. The organisation is called Diamond Way and is headed by a Dane named Ole Nydahl. Members of the Diamond Way organisation were prominent in TV coverage of the demonstration against the mosque.

Ole Nydahl is quite forthright about the Islamic menace to all other religions. In a 2008 interview he was asked: "In your view, is there a redeeming value within the Abrahamic religions?" To which he replied:

"The Abrahamic religions, the ones that follow our constitution, treat women well, don't blow up people ... Judaism and Christianity are fine. Islam, I warn against. I know the Koran, I know the life story of Mohammad and I think we cannot use that in our society today. "

Of course Buddhists don't normally criticise other spiritual paths, but it's OK to tell the truth about Islam because Islam isn't a spiritual path, it's a contagious mental disease like rabies. Islam has destroyed Buddhism wherever it has had the power.

Islam has destroyed entire Buddhist civilisations. And of course the Poles have also suffered from Islamic attacks, but unlike the Buddhists they have always beaten them back, most notably at the siege of Vienna where a Polish army under Jan III Sobieski saved Christendom from annihilation.

Richard Dawkins views Christianity as a bulwark against Islam
Christianity is in decline in Europe as a whole, and has collapsed in Britain in particular, leaving even the most committed atheists wondering what is going to fill the spiritual vacuum.

From The Times:
"Even among the world’s most famous atheists, the crisis of faith among Christians in Europe has been met with concern.

Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, said: “There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death. I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.”

Peter Tatchell, the human rights campaigner and one of the organisers of the Protest the Pope demonstration at Westminster Cathedral last weekend, came to the defence of a Christian street preacher who was fined £1,000 in Glasgow for saying that homosexuality was a sin.

Shawn Holes, a Baptist from America, was charged with “uttering homophobic remarks” in a breach of the peace that prosecutors said was “aggravated by religious prejudice”.

Mr Tatchell said: “The price of freedom of speech is that we sometimes have to put up with opinions that are objectionable and offensive. Just as people should have the right to criticise religion, people of faith should have the right to criticise homosexuality.”

It is a sign of how bad things have become that the faith’s enemies seem now to be defending it."
More at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7085129.ece

Gays respond to Islamic attacks by joining EDL
British LGBT have responded to the vicious anti-gay jihad being waged in London and other Islamified cities by joining the English Defence League, which in its early days had something of a macho redneck image. But it now has a Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered Division campaigning against increasingly violent homophobic attacks by Muslims.

The EDL is also attracting growing numbers of Sikhs and Jews who are also coming under attack as the Muslim population rises. The only safe place to wear a yarmulke or fly an Israeli flag in Britain now is at an EDL demonstration.

The ever-increasing influence of the Ummah in Europe

To the Ummah, we are all 'najis kafirs'
European infidels are beginning to realise that if we don't hang together, we will all hang separately. First they'll come for the Jews, then the Gays, and eventually the Buddhists, Christians, secularists and everybody else.

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Islam will Dominate - The Islamic Threat to Buddhism

Collateral damage

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Chesterton on Mysticism

2010-02-07T06:16:00.002-08:00

Mysticism permits the twilight

"Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that.

"Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such as thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age becsuse it was not.

"It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid."

— GK Chesterton

One foot in fairyland

"The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid." - this is reminiscent of Gödel's incompleteness theorem, which states that any consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by a computer program is incapable of proving certain truths about arithmetic.

In other words, any consistent computable formal theory which can prove some arithmetic truths cannot prove all arithmetic truths. Or, if an axiomatic system can be proven to be consistent and complete from within itself, then it is inconsistent.

As mathematics is the very foundation of our understanding of the physical universe, Gödel's theorem suggests that there may be an unsolvable mystery or irreconcilable paradox at the very heart of reality.

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Himalaya Exhibition London, from 8th Feb 2010

2010-02-03T06:20:00.000-08:00

Himalaya Exhibition combines art and photography to give an introduction to the cultural forces and trends flowing through the present-day Himalayan Region.

Further details here

Upstage the Unbelievers Wherever You Find Them!

2010-02-01T05:34:00.000-08:00

Temple fair

'Temple fair pickings' by Wang Shutong:
"Temple fairs are a historic, integral part of Lunar New Year celebrations for many, but their origins are somewhat more competitive than one might imagine.

Buddhism and Taoism both reached their peaks during the Tang and Song dynasties respectively, and they used to compete with each other by holding performances in order to transmit their doctrine and recruit followers. Dances and dramas were added to the activities, and people from all across China came to participate and enjoy. Later, vendors began selling goods at these fairs, turning the temples into markets.

The modern incarnation of the temple fair is a place to buy new years decorations, watch shadow puppet plays and cross talk performances, taste traditional Beijing snacks and to pray for blessings and good luck in the coming year..." Full article at Global Times

I suppose dance, music and drama are OK for wimps, but they're nowhere near as effective as the way the macho Abrahamic religions recruit followers, by chopping unbelievers' heads off or burning them at the stake. - Sean

Rational Buddhism

Tibetan language -Howtheuseofwhitespaceinprintingcouldhelpreaders

2010-01-27T04:54:00.000-08:00

BREATHING SPACE: How Word Separation Can Save the Tibetan Language

By Tenzin Dickyi (from Phayul.com)

The Tibetan language, like an asthma patient in a dust storm, is gasping for breath. Although Tibetan children born and raised in locations as geographically disparate as Lhasa, Dharamsala or New York may grow up speaking Tibetan as a first language, they’ll almost certainly write it as a second. As long as Tibet remains a colony of China, this will not change. For Tibetan students inside Tibet, the language of professional success is now Chinese. For Tibetan students outside, it’s English. Disadvantaged by the system, Tibetan is inevitably neglected.

For the fate of Tibetan as a spoken language, the result of this neglect is so far minimal: as the language of home and hearth, it surrounds us in infancy and we grow up speaking Tibetan as our mother tongue. For Tibetan as a writing system, however, the result of this neglect is devastating: Tibetans of our generation do almost all of our reading and writing in a foreign language and almost none in Tibetan.

When young Tibetans trained outside the monastic system – who constitute the majority – cannot write a decent letter in Tibetan or read a sentence without tripping over at least three words, we have a crisis at hand. What’s to be done?

The root of the problem is quite simple: we cannot write Tibetan well because we almost never read Tibetan, and we almost never read Tibetan because it is so difficult to read it. And there’s one very simple way to immediately ease the difficulty of reading Tibetan: word separation. Adding a space between words so that we can see each word as an immediate discrete unit having visual meaning will simplify the daunting task of reading Tibetan script overnight.

In fact, this is what people throughout the world have been doing with other writing systems. Ancient Greek and Latin were written in scriptura continua, which is continuous script without spaces between words. Paul Saenger, the distinguished scholar of medieval writing practices, asserts that it was only at the end of the seventh century that Irish monks began to introduce spaces between words into medieval manuscripts, and it took several centuries for this practice to be adopted as standard. (Paul Saenger argues that it was this “aerated” script that led to the development of silent reading as we know it.) This space between words, also called whitespace, is now ubiquitous across many writing systems. Even Hindi, previously written in continuous Devanagari script (the base from which Thonmi Sambhota devised the Tibetan alphabet and writing system) is now spaced. Korea’s Hangul, previously continuous, is now generally spaced. Ethiopic, which like Tibetan uses the interpunct, the dot – although they double it, like so (:)- is increasingly written with a space between words... FULL ARTICLE

Itmustbeverydifficultforchildrentolearntoreadinsuchasystem,andalsothereadingspeedofadultsmustinevitablysufferasthereadermustputextraeffortintowordrecognition

Thank goodness English has a perfectly logical writing system.

Was the Buddha a CONSERVATIVE???

2010-01-24T08:04:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from an article by Robin of Berkeley...

"Now that I think about it, I started becoming a conservative the moment I picked up that book by Trungpa. The Buddha's teachings are deeply conservative.

Given that Buddhism got me started on the straight and narrow, I was puzzled when Brit Hume urged Tiger Woods to switch from Buddhism to Christianity. As a Christian, Hume reasoned, Woods would find a path to forgiveness and redemption.

As a spiritual seeker, I'm a big fan of Christianity. I've attended two services -- one Catholic, and the other primarily black and evangelical. I loved them both.

But Buddhism is a fiercely moral path too, even though it is not God-centered. There are severe consequences in the next life for sins this time around. Act like a snake, and come back as one. (Tiger, are you listening?)

Whether a person calls himself a Buddhist or a Christian doesn't matter anyway if he doesn't walk the walk. Obama's bio states that he's a Christian. But his administration doesn't exactly exude Christian brotherhood.

The Buddha would never excuse Tiger's lying and cheating ways. But the problem is that Buddhism, like everything else, has been co-opted by political correctness and leftist dogma. Contemporary Buddhism resembles little of what the master taught.

Today's teachers communicate a don't-worry-be-happy kind of a vibe. Curiously missing is the number-one principle of Buddhism: that life is suffering."

"In Berkeley, for instance, the latest craze is a Joy class, taught by a popular Buddhist teacher. Thousands have already attended the course, where Joy Buddies are assigned to make sure you're on the happy trail.

The Buddhist magazine Shambhala Sun likes to mix leftist ideology with ads for pricey yoga retreats. Right before the election, the Sun published an article entitled "The Meaning of Barack Obama," which declared that if you didn't vote for Obama, then you were in essence an unenlightened boob.

In the magazine's next issue, liberal icon Alice Walker blamed the U.S. for all the bad karma in the world. Left out of the equation were countries like Uganda, Sudan, Cambodia, China, and Cuba, which have some serious explaining to do in the karma department."

[...]

As the Buddha lay dying, he uttered these final words:

'Be a lamp to yourself. Be an island. Learn to look after yourself; do not wait for outside help. Only truth can save you. Work out your salvation with diligence.'

The Buddha stood for hard work, restraint, and honor. Sounds like a conservative manifesto to me."

'A frequent AT contributor, Robin is a recovering liberal and a psychotherapist.'

Full article at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/tiger_the_buddha_and_me.html

Buddhist Dharma wheels and triskelions

2010-01-18T12:03:00.000-08:00

Japanese dharma wheel

Indian dharma wheel

Scottish sculptured stone

In response to a comment by Marc at Celtic and Buddhist symbolism - triskelions, triskeles , here are some higher resolution scans of the images. Click to enlarge to full size and highest resolution.

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Bodhisattva vows - an antidote to depression and mental illness

2010-01-15T00:57:00.000-08:00

Bodhisattva Padmapani

By Eric Klovig, Ph.D from

Crazy and Free--A Million Lifetimes

Taken from The Oak Tree in the Garden (Journal of the Hidden Valley Zen Center)

Eric Klovig, Ph.D., is an experienced Buddhist teacher of Vipassana. He generously shares his personal story below:

'Nearly 30 years ago I brought great mental and physical suffering into my first three-month-long meditation retreat. There would be many more three-monthers over the years, but for a while that fall it looked as if there would not even be one. Even though I had plenty of good external support at that retreat, I was suffering so much that I felt I would have to leave. That prospect brought desperation; I didn't know where else to turn.

Then one afternoon, as I walked outdoors in solitary walking meditation trying to hold this desperation, a thought came seemingly from nowhere and struck deeper into my psyche than anything had ever done before: If it takes a million lifetimes, I will free this heart from its suffering! Almost 30 years later I remember precisely where I walked when this thought came. Because it set so deep, I knew immediately that the outcome would be inevitable: This heart will be free! There has never been a doubt about the matter since. An unshakable resolve had set itself, one that supported me to stay at that retreat, and also to face many more difficulties in practice and in the rest of my life.

Bodhisattva Guan Yin

Years later that purpose widened. I took the bodhisattva vows of Mahayana Buddhism, even though they were not part of my own Buddhist tradition. Since then I have tried to make my last thought before I sleep, and my first thought after waking, these words: For as long as space and time endure, I will abide to relieve the suffering of living beings. For me the question of purpose has been settled forever. This, my only real purpose, is the true north star that guides everything in my life.

Do you sense the forceful strength of such purpose? It can support you through the challenges of spiritual practice. It can also support you through the grave challenges of mental illness, and indeed can change for the better your relationship with illness. For example, unshakable purpose likes this acts as a direct antodote to the futility, despair, and sense of meaninglessness that depression hawks as false truth. It also cuts through the solipsistic self-absorption that comes as baggage with all mental illnesses.

Recently, in the midst of a bad bout of PTSD, I watched a movie that depicted grievous human suffering. As the credits rolled, I thought, "My task is to relieve the suffering of living beings. So let's get on with it!" Remembering and renewing my purpose propelled me out of self-absorbed PTSD pain into service again.

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List of Buddhist Blogs

2010-01-15T00:24:00.000-08:00

This list was last updated on 19-Jan-2012 and consists of Buddhist blogs currently active. If you know of any that should be listed please leave a comment.

AH! Dharma reflections based on the words of Anyen Rinpoche
American Buddhist Perspective
A to Z of Buddhism
Awakened Artistry

B. Alan Wallace

Barbara's Buddhism Blog

Be and See

Bodhi Armour

Bodhi Tree Swaying
Bookbird

Buddhist Christianity
Buddhist Friend

Buddhist Military Sangha

Buddhist Reformation

Buddhist Travelers

C4Chaos
Daily Lamrim

Dalai Grandma
Dancing Dakini Wisdom

Dangerous Harvests

Danny Fisher
Dhamma Musings

Dharma Forest

Dharma Folk
Dharma Loss

Digital Dharma

Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Gomde Israel Sangha
Good Eye Project

Himalayan Art Resources
Huffington Post

Integral Options

Jayarava's Raves

Jizo Chronicles
Kadampa Blogs - list compiled by Luna Kadampa

Kadampa Life
Kadampa Wisdom

Life is Like That

Lotus in the Mud

Luminous Heart
Madhushala

Nepalese and Tibetan Art blog

Notes in Samsara

One City

Open Buddha
Out of the Lotus
Ox herding

Peaceful Turmoil
People of Shambhala

Precious Metal

Progressive Buddhism
Rational Buddhism
Reflections on the Spiritual Path
Return to Rural

Sean Robsville

Shambhala Sun Space

Smilin Buddha Kabaret
Snow Branches
Starting with what you have
Sujato's Blog

Susan Piver

The Asian Welder
The Meditative Gardener

This Mountain That Mountain

Tricycle Editors
Wake Up and Laugh
Walterblog

West Wight Sangha

Wisdom Quarterly

Worst Horse - 'Home of the Dharma-Burger'

Zen Dot Studio
Zenfant's Home for Dirty Dharma

Zennist
108zenbooks
21 Awake

Teens meditate to reduce stress

2010-01-14T00:12:00.000-08:00

From Times Online

Pupils at a leading public school are to receive weekly 40-minute classes in meditation and stress relief in a ground-breaking addition to the school curriculum.

Schoolboys aged 14 and 15 at Tonbridge School, in Kent, were given their first lesson yesterday as part of a course designed with psychologists from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

The project — the first to introduce meditation skills as a regular subject on the curriculum — has been designed specifically for adolescents and comes after the success of a pilot study at the school last year.

The “mindfulness” course for Year 10 pupils will last for eight weeks. It is designed to develop skills in concentration and to combat anxiety, showing teenagers the benefits of silence and helping them to identify and escape corrosive mindsets that could lead to mental health problems such as depression, eating disorders and addiction.

The course develops other exercises to help to improve attention — rather than allowing the mind to be “hijacked” by emotional issues, regrets, worries about the past and future and other distractions. This can be done in a number of ways, such as by focusing on breathing, parts of the body or movement.

Mindfulness originated in Eastern meditation traditions such as Buddhism but is now an established secular discipline. A growing body of research supports wider use of the approach to address transient stress and deeper mental health problems, including recommendations from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence that it be offered on the NHS to patients suffering from depression.

The project is a collaboration with staff at Charterhouse and Hampton schools — with both institutions planning similar schemes — as well as the Mindfulness Centre at Oxford and the Wellbeing Institute at Cambridge.

Richard Burnett, a divinity teacher and housemaster at Tonbridge who is leading the course, told The Times that the course demanded a “culture change” in the perceptions of silence for teachers and pupils.

“One of the things about schools is that silence is associated with power — the teacher tells the pupils to be quiet. What you need to do is convey the idea that silence is a positive activity to be savoured and enjoyed,” he said.

He said that while some children involved in the trial had been sceptical, most had embraced the challenge that it posed in the classroom. The pupils said that they hoped to use the mindfulness in the future to help to battle anxieties and to put things in perspective. They also said that they found it helpful for getting to sleep and becoming less nervous about school cricket matches.

Mark Williams, director of the Mindfulness Centre at Oxford, said that Tonbridge was the first school to introduce a full meditation course in a practical rather than academic context.

Professor Williams said: “This is not about converting people to Buddhism, but showing there is scientific evidence that these practices are useful. So why deny them from being used?”

In March Tonbridge is to host a conference, with Professor Williams as a speaker, that aims to encourage mindfulness uptake in schools.

Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, said that mindfulness training also offered the chance to take proactive steps to avoid depression and anxiety in later life.

“These problems have their roots in early life, so if you can learn techniques when you are young you might never have a breakdown,” he said.

Staying focused

• The first lesson, being run this week, is described as “puppy training” — comparing the mind with a puppy that needs to learn how to “stay” and focus on one thing, rather than running around in a distracted fashion

• Other stages of the course include establishing calm and concentration; recognising rumination; developing present-moment awareness in the everyday; slowing and savouring activities; stepping back from thoughts that hijack you; allowing, accepting and being with difficult emotions; reflection and making it personal

• It uses figures from popular culture to help to explain the benefits of mindfulness, including rugby player Jonny Wilkinson, who uses meditation techniques to help his concentration when kicking for goal, and Po, a lethargic panda who transforms his attitude in the Dreamworks’ film Kung Fu Panda

• Each class has one 40-minute lesson a week, with a weekly MP3 file of mindfulness exercises that they are encouraged to listen to before evening homework

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