Recently, Brad Warner had posted his hardline position on drugs/psychedelics. His conclusion:

You can comment all you want, but you won’t change my mind about drugs. You will always and forever be wrong if you try to equate true spirituality with frying your brain on chemicals (even if they grow inside cacti and fungi). Put it this way, if you want me to say drugs are cool, you’re gonna lose. And what would that make you?

I was a bit surprised that Brad has taken this position since he’s one of the rebels and bad boys in popular American Buddhism. So I tried to engage him in discussion so that I can draw out more perspectives where he’s coming from.

I pointed to him that his position on this issue is very limited and that Sam Harris has a more nuanced view. See Sam Harris: Drugs and the Meaning of Life. I also pointed to Brad a more recent scientific study of psilocybin conducted by Dr. Roland Griffiths.  See The Secular Buddhist: Episode 69: Dr. Roland Griffiths: Psilocybin and Meditation.

However, it looks like Brad continue to stick to his hardline position without even acknowledging or taking into consideration the scientific findings on psychedelics. So, in conclusion, here’s what I posted on Brad’s discussion on Facebook (with very slight spelling and grammatical corrections).


Brad,

sorry to hear that you had a bad trip using LSD. i've heard a lot of stories about the dangers of drug use while i was growing up so i have never tried any drugs myself. not even once. (and besides my father would've beaten my ass if i tried )

however, i do recognize the potential of drugs/psychedelics as a valid way (actually ancient way, much more ancient than meditation) if used in moderation and in the context of exploring and expanding one's own mind/consciousness.

our main difference on this topic is that of attitude. it looks like you got traumatized by your experience with drugs. so now you cling to your opinion that drugs "are extremely dangerous. No one should use them ever." fine, if that's what you think, so be it. only you can change your position. but what ever happened to the "middle way"?

anyway, what i and Rene are pointing out to you and to your readers/fans/FB friends is that there's a more nuanced and scientifically-informed view which honor your position on drugs (e.g. it being dangerous) and its potential to transform consciousness. let me point you again to the most recent research conducted by Dr. Roland Griffiths. here's an excerpt from NYTimes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html

"In one of Dr. Griffiths’s first studies, involving 36 people with no serious physical or emotional problems, he and colleagues found that psilocybin could induce what the experimental subjects described as a profound spiritual experience with lasting positive effects for most of them. None had had any previous experience with hallucinogens, and none were even sure what drug was being administered. "

imho, your experience on drugs is precisely the reason why this thing need to be studied and used in a controlled environment. people have always and will always use drugs (at least that's how it's been historically). so all the more reason to study it's effects, learn what's the optimal use, in order to avoid its dangers.

i think that you denying this scientific fact is a disservice to your own personal growth and to the influence you have on your readers/fans/students.

thank you for engaging me in this discussion.

~C

UPDATE: Brad Warner posted a response on my Facebook page. Also, he’s been responding on his FB page.

Here’s Brad’s response on my FB page:

There is no longer any way an average person can engage in drug (ab)use in a controlled environment. Like I already said, what’s sold these days as “LSD” almost never is. Same with most other such substances. The consumer never knows what they’re getting. It’s extremely bad stuff. Your assumptions about how I arrived at my conclusions are only partly correct. It goes far beyond a mere traumatic experience.

And here’s my response:

Brad, you said: “There is no longer any way an average person can engage in drug (ab)use in a controlled environment.” unfortunately, you are correct on this. but only because of the stigma on drugs perpetrated by the U. S. government’s “War on Drugs”, which is a losing (or already lost) position. this is what happens when ignorance on the effects of drugs is perpetrated by our own government. but this is another topic for discussion that goes into the territory of politics and economics. the gist of my opinion is to point out that there is a more mature and healthier way of dealing with drugs at a personal as well as cultural domains of experience. btw, I don’t want to get too personal but I’m interested to hear your “far beyond mere traumatic experience” of drugs, if you’re ok with disclosing it publicly.

However, I think this response from R.T. on Brad’s FB page really nailed it. It’s an excellent response coming from someone outside the U.S.

Brad, I can’t talk for your part of the world, but here proper set and setting is still available. One reason it’s not so easy to find are people like you who demonize LSD without knowing what they talk about, so it’s pushed in the underground.

The university of Zurich is officially running a research program about LSD and Psylocibin with humans, and some psychiatrist have a legal permission to use it with patients – though I’m not sure about the conditions and details right now.

If that stuff would be as dangerous as you claim, it would be unethical to do that.

And if you don’t even know if what you took was LSD or not, then your experience is simply irrelevant in regard to LSD, and then maybe the right thing to do would be to reconsider your position and say “don’t buy stuff without knowing the source”. To which I fully agree.

To restate my position, there are good reasons not to try LSD. But if anyone thinks having decades of meditative practice makes them into experts about LSD without having to work with it, then that’s simply ignorance.

Use it or don’t use it – for that, everyone has to make up his or her own mind, and if you’re in doubt, don’t use it. But if you don’t use it then I would expect enough integrity to admit having no clue instead of claiming to know it’s bad for everyone.

UPDATE: (07/13/11) – Brad Warner just posted a follow up on his blog. See “Mountain of Drugs“.

Here’s the comment I posted on his blog:

Brad,

i thought that you’re already bored on this topic. and lo and behold, there you go again with another blog post! just kidding. i really appreciate the attention you put on this topic on my FB page even if we still end up not seeing eye to eye on this issue. now that i got that out of the way…

for the most part i agree with what you posted here. that’s why i personally prefer meditation practice over drugs/psychedelics/entheogens because the former has been time-tested and the latter has more dangers and risk of incarceration. like i said, i haven’t used psychedelics myself. not even once. so based on your zero-tolerance policy i could claim that i have the moral high ground, even over you, since you tried drugs and got traumatized yourself. but this moral high ground debate on drugs (such as the “War On Drugs”) is another topic altogether so i’ll refrain from expounding on this, at least on this discussion. my view is more on the *pragmatic* and *scientific* perspectives on the potential of drugs to *alter and transform consciousness*.

again, i would recommend your readers to see Sam Harris’s position on this issue. see: “Drugs and the Meaning of Life” – http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life/ – i’m with Harris on this one. we share the same nuanced view on this issue. and you can’t accuse him of not meditating because he’s a long-time practitioner of Vipassana meditation.

so my first point, how come Sam Harris, a long-time meditator has a different attitude on psychedelics than you? i haven’t seen you addressed this point. you continue to resort to simplistic and metaphorical arguments which to me are dead ends. let’s talk evidence and science. let’s talk about the empirical findings on psychedelics and meditation. then let’s compare the two instead of just flat out saying that drug users are “losers” and meditators are the real deal.

the main issue i have with you is your outright dismissal of psychedelics as a valid way of transforming consciousness. your bias with meditation (more specifically with Zen style Buddhism) is so deeply ingrained that you don’t (or can’t) address the nuanced position that i hold on this issue. i’m not sure whether you truly understand my nuanced position at all, or whether you just continue to intentionally ignore it and then resort to a simplistic (or caricatured straw-man) version of my carefully-crafted arguments. to me that wreaks of intellectual dishonesty. i’ll refrain from labeling you as a “fundamentalist.” i acknowledge that labeling you like that is unfair and unwarranted. but it seems to me that you’re being intellectually dishonest about this issue by not addressing the nuanced position i’m pointing to and ignoring the scientific facts from recent research that *drugs do transform people’s consciousness and improve their well-being when used in moderation, optimal dosage, and right setting.*

that’s all for now.

thanks again for your attention.

And here’s a comment I posted on Brad’s “Mountain of Drugs” thread on his FB page.

who cares about the the mountain climbing metaphor? that’s a dead end argument on both sides. here’s my point from an esoteric perspective, which Brad seems to ignore (or unable to fathom) altogether.

people who use drugs and people who meditate are just as susceptible of being trapped in the “Intermediate Realm”
(see my blog post for more context: http://www.c4chaos.com/2009/10/the-science-of-enlightenment-intermediate-realms-of-power/)

the main difference between the two approaches is that drugs could catapult a person deep into the subconscious much *faster* and more *consistently* than meditation (at least when compared to beginning meditators and those who have no experience with meditation). hence, the danger of using (and abusing) drugs.

but the fact that drugs are dangerous doesn’t *invalidate* it of its potential to transform consciousness. if the experiencer already has a *healthy psychological framework* from which to interpret his/her experience in the “Intermediate Realm” then drug-induced states can be used as skillful means to observe the three characteristics of experience: unsatisfactoriness, impermanance, and no self as thing.

in point of fact, this is what the Tibetan Buddhists do in their dream yoga practice. the experience in dream yoga (or lucid dream practice) is similar to drug-induced states. the practitioner “sees” magnificent dreamscapes, creatures, aliens, mythological beings, etc. in the dream. the challenge for the practitioner is to see beyond the forms in the dream state. this is the same challenge that people have to deal with in a drug-induced state. that’s why it’s important to approach drug use with utmost care and guidance because it’s so easy to induce that state compared with meditation and lucid dreaming.

and that is the point that Brad continue to ignore. maybe because he doesn’t have much experience with dream yoga, or maybe because he was deeply traumatized by his drug experience. i have no issue with Brad’s direct-plunge-into-the-Source approach (aka Zen). my issue with him is his bias with meditation and his outright dismissal of drugs and its potential to transform consciousness.

UPDATE: (07/15/11) – The discussion on psychedelics continue on Brad’s FB page. But I get the impression that Brad is not really that interested in an honest intellectual conversation on this matter. He didn’t even have the courtesy to link to this blog post. He has his beliefs and he’s happy to stick with it. So I’ll just conclude this blog post with two seemingly contrasting perspectives on this topic.

One perspective is Michael Harner’s view based on his empirical findings and his anthropological research. See “My Path in Shamanism – Interview with Michael Harner.” Here’s a relevant quote:

‎The shaman is an empirical pragmatist. The worlds are wherever the shaman sees them. The idea that all this is happening inside us is, in contrast, a theory.
…
What do you say to students who want to take psychedelics?

It’s fine if they want to do it; that’s their business. But I don’t want my students to get the idea that they have to do that. I want them to get the bigger picture—that there’s another reality and that it’s accessible by various means.

And the other perspective is the neuroscience perspective as eloquently described by Michael Persinger in his award-winning lecture on “Psychotropic Drugs and the Nature of Reality.” Watch this video.

I conclude this blog post with a question: Instead of “War on Drugs” or ignorance on drugs, how about “Education on Drugs”?

Shinzen once said that, “When the teacher is ready, the students appear.” I guess Shinzen is ready for me. For those who are wondering why I picked Shinzen as my main dharma teacher, here’s a welcoming video wherein he summarized the reasons.

Another reason is that I like his geeky approach to the dharma and his unique interactive meditation style. But most importantly, he’s a no non-sense teacher who’s not afraid to talk about enlightenment and his first-hand experience as a “liberated” person (Shinzen never calls himself liberated or enlightened, but I believe him to be, otherwise I won’t pick him as a dharma teacher. but that’s just me.).

Finally, on top of it all, his humility and honesty is disarming and he laughs like a geeky kid.

Most you of who are following this blog, my (hyper)stream, and tweets are probably sick of me pimping out Shinzen. But what can I say? I find tremendous value in his teaching so I’m just paying it forward. I hope you find value in them as well. And if you do find value in them, please pay it forward. It’s good karma

May you be safe, be healthy, live with ease… and may Happiness be.

P.S. As of this writing more videos of Shinzen Young are being added to his YouTube channel (big thanks to HPK for recording and uploading these videos). There’s also another YouTube channel with Shinzen’s up-close interviews conducted by Stephanie Nash. Collectively, these videos contain all the up-to-date version of Shinzen’s teachings condensed from his four decades of experience. As an example, here’s the technical foundation of Shinzen’s contemporary reworking of the Buddha’s five aggregates – see The Human Sensory (TSSFIT) System.

I’m glad that Shinzen is doing this “brain dump” online so that many more people will benefit from his style of teaching (which in my opinion is the best that I’ve encountered out there). The best part is that, from what I know, whatever Shinzen talks about in those videos are the same things he teaches in his home-based retreats. This means that Shinzen is making his teachings available as “open source”. You don’t have to pay him anyting to get the gist of his teachings. You don’t have to buy any of his books (though I highly recommend The Science of Enlightenment). You don’t have to pay him squat to benefit from his teachings. You can basically just watch all the available videos and implement it in your daily practice. That’s essentially what I’ve done. I have never met Shinzen in person. I have never attended (yet) any of his residential retreats. Yet, I feel that he’s provided me with all the information I need through his free videos. If that is not Open Source Enlightenment, then I don’t know what Open Source Enlightenment is.

Thank you, Shinzen for your teaching, generosity, humility, and openness. May you live long and kick more ass.

(via Flickr ~ wignaz)

In my previous posts I transcribed tracks from Session 13 of The Science of Enlightenment. Session 13 is one of my favorite sessions in the series because it’s a good reminder for everyone who are consciously taking a spiritual path.

In this post I’ve transcribed the last three tracks in the session. This is the part where Shinzen Young described in detail three possible extreme reactions or attitudes of people in the Intermediate Realms of Power.

Before reading my transcription below, if you haven’t read my previous posts yet, I suggest that you read them first so you can appreciate this post from a bigger context. Here are the links to the previous tracks that I have transcribed.

The Science of Enlightenment: The Pathless Land

The Science of Enlightenment: Consciousness as a Three-Layered Cake

The following are last the three tracks on Session 13. I hope this helps you along your journey. May you be safe, be healthy, live with ease… and may Happiness be.

Session 13: Track 4 – Relating to Your Intermediate Realms

As I mentioned, in my book, the yardstick, the barometer of spiritual maturity lies in how one conceives of and relates to the phenomena of this Intermediate Realm. I can suggest to you that there are three extreme cases and an infinity of intermediate cases.

One extreme relationship to the phenomena of the Intermediate Realm is as follows. A person starts out on the surface like everyone, either because of a cultivated path, or simply spontaneously, or perhaps because of some condition like and illness or being expose to sleep deprivation or hot or cold or who knows what — drugs. For whatever reason a person turns 90 degrees from the surface and starts to go down a bit into the substance of consciousness. They go down a bit and they encounter some phenomenon that may be unusual. It may be strange, and they get frightened, and they say, “That is not for me. I don’t ever want to go back to that place.” So one extreme response or relationship to this intermediate realm is, you go down a little bit you freak out, you scramble back to the surface, and you stay on dry land, you stay on that surface for the rest of your life, and you do not go back there.

A second extreme relationship, once again for whatever reason, either through a cultivated path or some circumstance, or spontaneously due to random flow of probabilities, for whatever reason you have an experience when you go into the substance of consciousness below the surface. Start to move towards the source, something happens, and you like it. It’s interesting. It’s empowering. It’s enticing. You say, “This is for me. I want to learn about this.” You start to explore. But the way that you explore is not by going any deeper. You turn 90 degrees again and you begin to go out horizontally out into the phenomena of that realm. Now you start to go out and explore this rich, empowering, interesting world of special phenomena — kundalini energy, psychic powers. I think you can see that the range of phenomena that constitute that realm is pretty much the range of mainline New Age stuff. That’s the New Age material down there. There’s no end. Once you go out horizontally there’s no end to new stuff you can experience — more interesting stuff, more powerful stuff, weirder stuff. The problem is you think you’re making spiritual progress. You think you’re getting closer to the spiritual source. But in this extreme case you are not, and you don’t know it. And your followers don’t know it. Because the vocabulary that you use is almost indistinguishable from the vocabulary used by the people that are going the mainline plummeting straight down to the source without following any byways horizontally out. The vocabulary is almost indistinguishable. The concepts is almost indistinguishable. It’s all spiritually correct stuff. And this is one of the reasons why teachers are very useful, if not absolutely necessary. Only somebody that has traversed those realms can really distinguish whether you’re going on a horizontal path out into the powers or whether you’re following a direct line to the spiritual source.

Session 13: Track 5 – Problems with the Realms of Power

There are a number of problems with this whole New Age phenomenology. Of course New Age is just a late 20th century term for something that has been recognized and known for millennia. In the Buddhist terminology it is sometimes called the Realms of Power. The surface ordinary awareness is referred to in traditional Buddhism as the Nirmanakaya — which means kaya, the body of appearance. The phenomena in the intermediate realm are called the Sambhogakaya — which means the body of glory. And the Source is called the Dharmakaya — the body of the Absolute, or the supporter, dharma means that which supports. So they talk about the three kaya, or three bodies. Every buddha has three bodies — nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, and dharmakaya — because every buddha, every fully enlightened man or woman, has experience in each of these three realms.

So here are the problems with the phenomena of the Realms of Power. The first and foremost is, because the realms of power are near the Source, if you get caught up in the appearances in the realms of power, you’re losing this wonderful opportunity to have a direct experience of the Source. You have to be able to see through those phenomena just like you have to be able to see through the phenomena of conventional reality. That’s the first problem. The second problem of course is, this whole aspect of turning 90 degrees again and going out into exploring these realms, because as I say without knowing it you could think that you are on a spiritual path and you could convince others that this is a spiritual path. When in fact it is literally parallel to the movement that people make on the surface of consciousness which is a movement of statis. When we move on the surface of consciousness we get statis. Basically the same trip that’s why this phenomena, this extreme case of going out horizontally is sometimes referred to as “spiritual materialism.”

The other problem is for every person that is interested in traversing the vertical path to the Source, there are a thousand people that are interested in the ego ornaments of the realms of power. So the ration is about a thousand to one in terms of where people’s money goes, where their time and energy goes, who they’re likely to follow on a spiritual path. The more you have a component of the powers, the more likely you are to attract a lot of people and to make money.

Another extreme, the third extreme, I’ve already obviously implied what it is: You go straight down. Whatever comes up you just view with mindfulness and equanimity. If nothing special happens, you pay attention to the ordinary. If something special happens and it’s frightening and painful, you view it with mindfulness and equanimity. If something special happens and it’s blissful and gives you special powers, you view it with mindfulness and equanimity. You make no distinctions. It’s a zero-tolerance policy. It also represents a certain extreme. In general, the Buddhist tradition would prefer that people follow that extreme. However, I should say that I have had teachers whose main interest was the special powers, BUT from a certain context.

I live with this teacher in Taiwan for almost a year, just he and I living together. He was a total Taoist Tantric Wizard. His entire interest was in the spirit realm and getting powers, BUT that interest had developed after his enlightenment. Why he had that interest was, within his culture and given his educational background, that was the best way he could help people — by curing their illnesses, by locating runaway children with psychic powers, by exorcising people that have been demonically possessed (which I saw him doing. very fascinating. Chinese possession phenomena, culturally quite different from Western possession phenomena). In any event, he cultivated all this stuff because that was part of his path of engagement to help other people. It wasn’t he was particularly interested for himself. He was liberated. He lived in the Source.

In the Buddhist tradition, if you’re interested in this stuff, it’s ok to put a lot of time and energy into it AFTER you have contacted the Source. Because after you have contacted the Source all of this phenomena take on such a different context. You realize where it really comes from. And until you have realized where it really comes from, there’s every probability that you’re going to develop problems in your relationship to these powers, which will then translate into problems in relationship with your fellow human beings.

We have three extremes:

You go down a little way, you encounter this stuff, you freak out, and you pop back up.

You go down a little way, you encounter this stuff, you get interested, and you go out into the world of exploration.

The third extreme: You go down and whatever you encounter you view it with mindfulness, equanimity, and a cognizance of its impermanence, and you just auger, auger, deeper, and deeper, and deeper, until you touch the Source. And you have direct experience of where both the surface and the intermediate zone come from.

Session 13: Track 6 – The Ascent of St. John of the Cross

Ascent of Mt. Carmel - English Translation of the Terms Used in St. John the Cross' Original Drawings

A good historical example of the third extreme, from the Western tradition, is St. John of the Cross. He was a great Christian mystic-poet. lived in the 16th century in Spain. He used the model of going up rather than going down but the idea is the same. He described the path to God as Subida Del Monte Carmelo (The Ascent of Mt. Carmel). He belonged to the Carmelite order of Christianity, which is one of the main meditating orders in the Roman Catholic tradition. He drew a picture (and we actually have the picture that he himself drew) of this Mt. Carmel — different stages that you go through as you’re ascending. And of course, the peak of Mt. Carmel is Dios, it’s God. Except he didn’t write Dios on the peak. Here’s what he wrote: At each stage of going up this mountain, he wrote Nada, Nada, Nada, Nada. And on the very top he wrote Y El Monte Nada. And at the peak also you’re going to experience Nada. Nothing, ok. But of course, the Nada of that peak is a very special nothing: the Zero of which you have heard me speak, many, many times. That’s the Nada that is Todo. And with this picture is a poem in Spanish. And I’m paraphrasing, I can’t remember either in Spanish or in English the exact thing that he said but it is something to the effect of: If you want to climb this mountain, you cannot let yourself be frightened by the beasts, neither can you stop to pick any flowers. It’s exactly the description of a really mature relationship to the intermediate realm — Not frightened by the beasts, but you’re not picking any flowers either.

(via Flickr ~ noblerobinette)

In my previous post I transcribed Session 13: Track 1 – The Pathless Land of The Science of Enlightenment series. In that talk Shinzen Young uses a metaphor of a “three-layered cake” to describe the journey from the surface of consciousness to the Source of consciousness. In this post I’ve transcribed the next two tracks so that readers would have more context of what Shinzen is talking about, and have more understanding of the usefulness of the three-layered cake metaphor.

Personally, I find that metaphor very useful as a conceptual model for my own practice. In this session Shinzen treated paranormal phenomena as if they were real, but without elevating them — a true sign of a matured teacher. Shinzen’s articulate description of the Intermediate Realms is an important reminder to everyone who are on a spiritual path.

I hope you find this teaching useful as you tread along the pathless land…

Session 13: Track 2 – Three Layers of Consciousness

Basically I like to think of three layers, although of course there are many subdivisions. The first layer is none other than surface consciousness — ordinary waking, consensual reality. The second layer is rather thick. It corresponds to what in the West is called, the subconscious and the unconscious. And then the third layer is not really a layer, but that’s where the metaphor gets a little misleading. But we could, for simplicity’s sake, think of it at least initially as a layer.

The third layer is, of course, the core of consciousness, the Source of consciousness. If you want to call that God, you can call that God. If you want to call that the Nature of Nature, you can call it the Nature of Nature. If you want to call it Brahma, which is the Sanskrit word for God, or if you want to call it the Tao, or if you want to call it the True Self, or the No Self — any of these words are completely legitimate.

The words don’t matter. The important thing, of course, is to have direct contact with it — direct contact as opposed to indirect contact. Nothing wrong with indirect contact, but it really doesn’t bring the satisfaction that direct contact brings. Indirect contact is when we think about our spiritual Source — we believe in it, we have certain ideas about it. Indirect contact is when we feel at an emotional level our spiritual Source — we have a sense of the numinous, we have a sense of piety, of Grace. That’s believing, feeling, it’s all great. But that’s indirect contact. If we want to have direct contact it means we have to go there. Where the confusion lies, in many cases, is with the experiences that a person has in the Intermediate Realms of consciousness — between the surface and the Source.

In those intermediate realms of consciousness one may experience various unusual phenomena. When we look at how these unconscious and subconscious has been dealt with in the West, it’s very revealing. If you look at the early history of analysis, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, you have, on one hand, Freud who spoke about the unconscious as this dark cellar, wherein all of these ghosts and demons and cobwebs and snakes and centipedes are hiding — the repressed poison and pain of our life, this pool of poison and pain of unresolved past experiences and conflicts. There is a certain truth to this. The basic impurities — the cravings, the aversions, etc. — are sort of stored down there. And in fact, it is the existence of those impurities that forms the impeding material that prevents surface ordinary awareness from constantly touching the Source of consciousness. And so from that perspective, the path is not really a journey, but rather it is a cleaning out of that intervening material, so that the surface and the Source fall together. When we shine the lights of mindfulness, and when we pour the water of equanimity into any experience that brightness and softening agents seep down into those areas where the blockages are and things get clarified and dissolved. And so the surface gets closer and closer to the Source. It drops one quantum shelf after another, until finally there’s a touching, and that’s your initial moment of enlightenment. And from that time on, in ordinary life, one is always aware that ordinary experience is in contact with the spiritual Source of all things.

Another view of the unconscious though, would be exemplified by Carl Jung. For Jung the unconscious was the world of the archetypes — the world of the spirits, the world wherein angels and dead ancestors, entities, and spirit beings actually exist, for real. And it’s quite true. Some people when they make this journey from surface to Source encounter extraordinary experiences in that intermediate realm. Not only might they encounter spirit beings and entities, but they might have other kinds of unusual experiences such as the impression that they have psychic powers. Whether these powers exist in actuality or not, I don’t begin to comment. But one can certainly get a very strong impression that they exist. One may have experiences of seeming to leave the body — a literally floating out of the body and looking down and floating down the street and seeing what you’re neighbor is doing. One may have experiences not only of encountering entities but of having these entities sort of channel through one. One may seem to have the ability to heal, or to influence people, or to even know what people are thinking. One may seem to have the ability to know what’s about to happen. Do we really have these abilities? Can we really do these things in the objective world? To tell you the truth, I don’t know. But the impression can be extremely vivid and strong, and therefore it is significant. It is significant.

It is of the utmost importance to realize that by no means does everyone encounter such unusual experiences or special powers when they traverse that intermediate realm. Also, it is to realize that by no means does everyone encounter directly the monsters of their impurities when they traverse that realm. Some people traverse the whole intermediate realm from surface to Source and are never aware of anything other than very ordinary banal experiences like the touch of their clothes, or aches and pains in their body, or the feeling of the breath. That’s all that ever happens to them, and yet they’re able to go to the Source.

Basically, some people have very ordinary experiences for the whole path. Some people get weird and uncomfortable — events in the mind, body, and even visionary hallucinatory material. Some people get interesting, unusual, entertaining, empowering experiences. Sometimes you can have a mixture of both — unusually hellish and unusually celestial experiences, both may be involved as you traverse this path. So there’s a lot of possibilities. Different people have very different experiences in the intermediate realm.

Session 13: Track 3 – The Creative Nature of Impermanence

However, how one relates to these experiences is of the utmost importance, whatever the experience may be in terms of what we might call, “spiritual maturity.” And in fact, the gold standard, the litmus test for spiritual maturity, in my book, is related to how a person conceives of the events in that intermediate realm. The spiritually mature person treats all events in that intermediate realm exactly the same. They greet them with mindfulness and equanimity. The spiritually immature person develops cravings and aversions with respect to the phenomena of the intermediate realm. They have fears of certain unusual experiences, desire for other certain unusual experiences. They have fear they won’t have any unusual experience. One way or another there’s all sorts of preferences, cravings, and aversions that can develop with respect to possible phenomena in the intermediate realm. As I say, the mark of maturity is how the person conceives of that intermediate realm.

There’s a famous Zen story about a monk who is meditating and started to get real successful at his meditation so that he could actually sit for hour after hour and, in fact, day after day without even having to move. He got so deep in meditation that even the gods started to admire him. Now, of course, in that part of the world what they call the “gods” we might say corresponds in the West to like angels and saints and that kind of thing. After a little while these angels and saints would show up every day and shower flowers on his head and give him offerings and things like that. And this went on for several days, and then finally he just grabbed his stick and he whacked them all and he said, “Get out of here! I’m tired of you guys!” That’s one response, okay. What did that mean, whacking them and saying “get out of here”? And is in fact, that’s the whole answer to this issue of these phenomena. Well, I would suggest to you that’s part of the answer, but that might not be the whole answer.

In my own experience, after I’d been meditating for about five or six years, I started to have visionary material, very intensely. One of the interesting things about visionary material is that once it gets going it’s not necessarily limited to when you’re sitting in formal practice. That’s something that people that go through this phenomenon discover to their chagrin. Once it gets going it’s there all your waking hours often. So that means when you’re just walking around or whatever you’re seeing stuff all day. And in my case it was mostly, but not exclusively, giant insects. And they were very realistic. It’s not like seeing a static image. It moves with all of the motion of a living being. The perfect arthropod articulatory motion that you would find in an actual creature. These things, they move and they were extremely vivid. We say visionary material but I should say you can touch and hear and smell it too. That’s what I meant when I said that it’s extremely realistic, whatever its ultimate ontological status may be. In any event, that went on for a good year. And I was in school, I was in graduate school and I walk to school and there’d be giant grasshoppers greeting me along the path and all sorts of stuff, and I still function quite well. There’s no problem. It wasn’t like being schizophrenic or anything like that. It was just a phenomenon of that intermediate realm. It means that I had dropped into that realm and some material was coming up.

Well, what did I do? Nothing special. I just treated it like any other phenomenon. It’s visionary material, so you’d meditate on it the same way you’d meditate on the visual field. Like if the grasshopper is in front of you, as your awareness go to the upper right, to the lower left, how your visual awareness floats over the surface of the thing, and you try to look through it, not at it. So you have a certain equanimity, not to be either curious or frightened. The interesting thing is that the more mindfulness, equanimity, and cognizance of impermanence that you have relative to this kind of material, the more realistic it becomes. Not the less realistic. Until when you are able to experience these phenomena with complete equanimity and unbroken awareness, at which point paradoxically they become absolutely tangible. They become like the ordinary world. They become that vivid. At that time you might think that that’s very disconcerting, but actually it’s not disconcerting at all. Because you remember how I described the flow of impermanence.

Well, we’ve only described a few aspects of impermanence. One aspect of impermanence that I have not yet talked about is, the impermanence is not just a characteristic of consciousness. Impermanence is also the very creative flow of nature that forms and ferments phenomena into existence, moment by moment. The more mindfulness and equanimity I had with this visionary material, the more I was able to literally see how the flow of impermanence was molding that material. So at the point when I completely surrendered and allowed the flow of impermanence to expand and contract and vibrate, it was at that point that created these visions the same way it creates ordinary reality. That’s why the visions become so realistic. But you don’t freak out. In fact, quite the opposite. You have a deep insight by having seen how impermanence creates something that is obviously a hallucination. You now have insight into how ordinary experience — the surface consensual reality — comes into existence. I should say that it’s not so much that the hallucinations become real but rather what you formally called real proves itself to have certain aspects of a hallucination. You get a real insight into the creative nature of consciousness.

If one greets the phenomena that come up in this intermediate realm with mindfulness and equanimity, because the intermediate realm phenomena are closer to the Source than consensual reality, one has a wonderful opportunity to get a deep insight into the creative process — how it is that mind creates. The reason that the Zen people talk about hitting the deities when they come is that they don’t want students to miss that opportunity. They don’t want students to get tripped out on the content of that intermediate realm, and therefore, miss their golden opportunity to get an insight into the nature of consciousness — the nature of Nature. It’s a very empowering thing to have an entity come and shower you with flowers, but that is a trivial experience relative to the empowerment that you get when you understand how the Source creates all things — yourself, the flowers, the entity, the world.

The reason that in some traditions they call this intermediate realm Makyo, which means the realm of blockages, the realm of the devil actually. Ma means like the devil. The reason why such pejorative terminology is used is that it’s so easy to miss your golden opportunity. You could get so caught up in the wonder of the spirits, that you fail to realize how close those spirits are to the Great Spirit — the Source of all things. You have to look just beyond the spirits and you can see the Great Spirit. In other words, the third layer — the activity of the Source.

(UPDATE: For the concluding tracks, see The Science of Enlightenment: Intermediate Realms of Power.)

Early on I was confused by these two seemingly paradoxical approaches to enlightenment. But over the years I’ve grown comfortable to embrace the two contradictory views. In short, I’ve gotten used to the paradox. I no longer agonize over it. It’s still a paradox to me. But I prefer to view it as enlightenment by serendipity.

So whenever I say that the ultimate “goal” of my Open Practice is enlightenment, I’m very well aware of the contradictory nature of that statement. I’m aware that it’s an illusion. I’m aware that I’m setting up myself for failure. I’m aware that I’m treading on the pathless land.

Nevertheless, I carry on, keeping in mind the core lessons I’ve learned from The Science of Enlightenment. Allow me to share some of these lessons…

In Session 13 of The Science of Enlightenment series (one of my favorites in the series), Shinzen Young started out with a track entitled, The Pathless Land. In this talk, Shinzen has captured in exquisite detail my view on enlightenment.  I’ve transcribed the talk so I can share this to all readers and to encourage people to listen to the entire series. I can’t recommend it highly enough. I’ll be transcribing more of my favorite tracks in future posts. In the meantime, here’s a sample of how eloquent Shinzen is when describing the “path” to enlightenment. 

Session 13: Track 1 – The Pathless Land

One metaphor for spirituality is that it’s a kind of path. The particular benchmarks on that path and how one describes the starting point and the ending point of that path, and the kind of vehicles that one uses — the actual techniques and approaches that carry you down that path — may differ. And in fact, the description of the path itself may differ. Often people don’t realize that two seemingly different descriptions of the path are actually referring to the same thing. Of course there’s some troubles, some problems associated with considering spirituality as a path. It leads to some misconceptions and some pitfalls.

If we describe spirituality as a path then it immediately sets up all sorts of expectations, all sorts of cravings, all sorts of aversions — “I wanna be there”; “I’m not there” — all sorts of ignorance because the goal of the path of course is to understand where you have been all the time. In a sense when you come to the goal of the path you only realize where you’ve always been. So the length of the path that you have traversed is actually, in a sense, zero. If you start thinking about a path it creates enlightenment as an object out there and in the future, which of course is the essence of illusion itself. You’re damn if you do, and you’re damn if you don’t.

If you fail to describe this spirituality as a path people don’t have a motivation, they don’t have a direction, they’re not sensitive to the benchmarks and the signs, they don’t recognize them, they don’t know what turns to make, etc.

To teach is to inevitably mislead people, to a certain degree. Any kind of teaching, as soon as you opened your mouth, you have misled people. On the other hand, to fail to teach is to mislead people even worse.

Let’s talk about aspects of this path, understanding that to speak of it as a path has dangers and is misleading. And yet on the other hand, to speak of it as a path may be of some use.

One possible model for the path to enlightenment is to look upon it as a journey from the surface of consciousness to the Source of consciousness. A lot of times people think of spirituality sort of as turning a 180 degrees away from the world. We turn away from the world and we turn towards God. And it’s a 180-degree turn going in exactly the opposite direction. But the way that I’d like to look upon spirituality is it’s not a turning of a 180 degrees, it’s a 90-degree turn. If we consider consciousness in some way as a layered cake, which I think has some validity as a model — the Earth exist in strata; there’s the surface of the earth and then underneath that are older rocks and underneath that are older rocks and the whole structure changes as we go through successive layers. In the same way we can look upon consciousness as having different layers to it.

Our usual ordinary day to day experiences — the world in which we have to sort of take care of business; subject and object are separate; we’re inside time and space; we have only the ordinary human type experiences that constitute what we might call consensual reality. And so our day to day life can be looked upon as sort of moving over the surface of consciousness — the different kinds of experiences we have in daily life: ordinary reality.

When we start to meditate we turn 90 degrees. Instead of moving just along the surface of consciousness we start to move down into consciousness. Actually, passing through successive layers in its structure. So we’re moving into the mind, into consciousness. By consciousness I mean, of course, just the six senses. Hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, the feeling body, and the thinking mind are the six doors of consciousness. And collectively, taken together, we can use the word consciousness to describe the collective of these six senses. We’re starting to go into consciousness rather than moving on the surface of consciousness. It’s a kind of journey from the surface of consciousness to the Source of consciousness. In doing so, we pass through successive strata or layers of consciousness, encounter different kinds of phenomena.

(UPDATE: For the continuation, see The Science of Enlightenment: Consciousness as a Three-Layered Cake.)

I just finished listening to Shinzen Young’s The Science of Enlightenment audio CDs. I ripped all 14 CDs into MP3s, synced them to my iPhone and  listened at home, on the road, at the gym, and even at work. I have high expectations, and I was not disappointed.

(Tip: If you don’t care about the CDs and nifty packaging, you can download the Science of Enlightenment on iTunes for less than half of its original price).

Aside from being a Buddhist monk, scholar, meditation teacher, mathematician, and science geek, Shinzen is also a linguist, so he’s very particular and precise with his use of words, pronunciation, and diction (especially with foreign languages). He likes to define and clarify any ambiguity in the terms he uses in his discourses. He doesn’t go into too much philosophical conjecture and speaks in a friendly matter-of-factness tone. The more I listen to him the more I become certain that Shinzen Young is my kind of kick ass dharma teacher.

The Science of Enlightenment was originally published in audio cassette tapes in 1998. Sounds True published the unabridged audio CDs in 2005. So keep in mind that the recorded talks are more than ten years old (that’s ancient time in cyberspace). However, that’s one of the reasons why I find this series so compelling to listen to. Even though Shinzen delivered the dharma in his own contemporary style and science-based lingo, with the advancement in science, his style of teaching apply more today than when he made the recordings ten years ago.

Here is my review and summary of the breadth and depth of The Science of Enlightenment.

some equations on the Science of Enlightenment

Disc 1 – Extraordinary States Of Focus And Presence / Cultivating Concentration Power / Expanding The Scale Of Your Life / Meditation As Part Of All Activities / What Is A Meditative State? / The Physiological Effects Of Meditation / Meditating For Your Health / Common Misconceptions About Meditation / Happiness Independent Of Conditions / A Complete Experience / How Your Meditation Benefits Others / Developing True Friendliness And Compassion

Shinzen starts out by explaining what meditation is and the importance of developing high concentration. He discusses the psychological and physiological effects of meditation practice. For those who already have a regular meditation practice, specifically Buddhist Vipassana practice, there’s not much new information on this CD. However, this is an excellent introduction for those who are new to meditation. It’s also a good refresher course for those who have slacked in their meditation practice.

Disc 2 – The Meditative Core Of World Religions / Three Aspects Of Religious Experience / What Is Enlightenment? / A Link Among The Mystics / Hinduism And The Technology Of Concentration / The Perennial Philosophy / Focusing The Mind With Relaxation / The Lessons Of Effort And Equanimity / Your Wave-Like Nature / The Unified Vibration Of All Life / Changing Your Understanding Of Self / Happiness In The Midst Of Suffering

Here is where listeners will get a sense of the depth of Shinzen’s experiential and encyclopedic knowledge of the common threads of mystical traditions. He elaborates on the terminologies used in different traditions when describing states of consciousness, concentration, and spiritual experiences. He uses the words “waves” and “vibrations” in describing the Buddhist concept of “impermanence.” On my part, I find this description of impermanence as key to understanding its “tangible” and experiential aspects. More on this below…

Disc 3 – The Six Senses / Modes Of Thinking / Dimensions Of Emotions / Being Mindful Of Body Sensations / Noting The Quality Of Your Feelings / Insight And Purification / Acquiring Skill At Feeling / How Thoughts And Feelings Intertwine / The Self As An Interactive Wave / Meditation Teachers As Living Models / The Activity Of Personality / Untangling Your Negative Emotions / Wave/Particle Complementarity / The Moment Of True Peace

This CD is where Shinzen goes into detail in discussing the Vipassana technique, specifically “noting” meditation. Vipassana (or Mindfulness) meditation is a technique of teasing apart the strands of our sensory experience. Using clear science metaphors and with his proclivity for mathematics, Shinzen explains how the tangling of sensory components causes overwhelm, suffering, and produce a sense of self. He then elaborates on the Wave/Particle paradigm of describing our awareness and Buddhist concepts such as impermanence and nothingness. For example here’s how he describes “nothingness” or the activity of the “Source” using the wave metaphor.

“…when we have this unblocked experience of the six senses and they produce their wave, this actually is not the complete experience of the Source. There’s one final step in the reduction. And that takes place when the waves cancel out. And there is a moment of true peace. Not peace in the sense that the mind has stopped thinking. But peace in the sense that all of the expansive and contractive forces that can create this or any universe have come together. And in their coming together they have drawn the richness of this and all conceivable universes, drawn them back into a state that is a cancellation of positive and negative. So it is a kind of nothing, but contains all the positive and negative. So it is at the same time, an everything.”

Very geeky, no?

Disc 4 – Global Relaxation Meditation / Free-floating Awareness Meditation

This is a guided meditation focusing on relaxation and free-floating awareness. Very refreshing and relaxing.

Disc 5 – Meditation As Inner Catalyst  / Paradigms Of Purification / Relieving Friction Among The Senses / The Paradox Of Complete Experience / The Technique Of No Technique / Strategies For Increasing Awareness / Classic Objects Of Meditation / Focusing On Feeling And Thoughts / Fixation And Driveness / Observing Your Thoughts / True Peace Of Mind / Contacting Your Fundamental Confusion / Samadhi Through The Senses

Here the discussion continues with the different objects of meditation, and meditation as a scientific paradigm. Shinzen expounds on thought (or thinking) as one of the six senses and introduced the concept of insight and purification. Those who are familiar with Theravada practice will recognize this as a generalized contemporary discourse on Visuddhimaga (Path of Purification).

Disc 6 – Thinking Process Meditation / Clarifying Meditation

I haven’t tried this meditation, yet. But it’s good to know that this option is available whenever I feel like it

Disc 7 – The Pathless land / Three Layers of Consciousness / The Creative Nature of Impermanence / Relating to Your Intermediate Realms / Relating to Your Intermediate Realms / The Ascent of St. John of the Cross / The Oblique Path of Shamanism / The Body of the Absolute / Fundamentals for Your Practice / Impetus to Follow the Path / Momentum and Maintenance / Liberation vs. Entertainment Meditation

This CD is one of my favorites in this series. This is the part where Shinzen talks about his “three-layered cake” metaphor of consciousness and how different people traverse the spiritual path in an infinite number of vectors. This is a contemporary discourse on the Buddhist teaching of Trikaya (or three bodies)–nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, and dharmakaya.

In this talk Shinzen criticizes the spiritual materialism which is rampant in New Age circles and religious faiths. A good portion of the discourse is on the dangers and pitfalls of the Intermediate Realm of Power–the layer of the subconscious, unconscious, and archetypes–where the weird stuff (ie, apparitions, psychic powers, demons, gods) arises. Unlike other meditation teachers who avoid talking about their inner experiences, Shinzen openly shares his own visionary encounters. However, he makes no claims on the objective nature of his experiences. He’s humble enough to label his visionary experiences as “hallucinations” no matter how realistic and insightful they were from his subjective point of view. Shinzen also shares some interesting stories of paranormal phenomena he witnessed, but cautions the listeners on exploring the horizonal dimensions of the archetypes. He highly recommends to get enlightened first before mastering the Intermediate Realms of Power.

Shinzen makes it clear that what he’s teaching is a “liberation-oriented” meditation as opposed to “spiritual entertainment.” So he emphasized practice with enlightenment as the ultimate goal; to use illusion to be free from illusion.

Disc 8 – Impermanence As A Facet Of Insight / Suffering And No-Self / Are The Mountains Moving? / The Guises Of Impermanence / Sensing The Vibrations Of Your Body / The Ultimate Inner Massage / The Taste Of Purification / The Marathon Monks Of Mt. Hiye / Digesting Karma / Merging Spirit And Matter / Impermanence As A Unifier / The Activity Called “You”

I just love listening to Shinzen’s discourse on impermanence. It’s different from other discourses I’ve heard before. Maybe because Shinzen uses contemporary and scientific metaphors which appeal to me. Just by hearing him describe impermanence as vibrations, waves, expansion, and contraction enabled me to improve on my meditation practice. Since then I’ve learned to ride the waves of subtle vibrations like a newbie surfer.

Disc 9 – The Formless Womb / Pondering The Obvious / The Pairs Of Fundamental Forces / Daidic Models In Western Philosophy / Mystical Judaism / Rising And Passing In Buddhism / Participating In The Activity Of The Source / The Polarization Of The Whole Universe / The Zero That Is Everything / Cessation Of Thought And Feeling / What Will You Do When The Earthquake Comes? / Being The Master Of Every Situation

More excellent discourse on impermanence, Nirvana, and why Joshu Sasaki Roshi‘s (Shinzen Young’s teacher) metaphor of expansion and contraction is an important breakthrough.  Shinzen also discusses the Dyadic Models (e.g. Ying and Yang) as opposed to Dualistic Models (e.g. Good vs. Evil) of spirituality. Very conceptually handy.

Disc 10 – Breath Meditation / Sensory Field Meditation

In this CD Shinzen guides the listeners to develop the sensitivity to recognize the vibratory, expansive, contractive, and undulatory sensations of impermanence. For me, focusing on these sensations is like being massaged by a vibrating chair from Sharper Image.

Disc 11 – The Science Of Enlightenment / Three “Vehicles” Of Buddhism / Three Geographical Regions Of Buddhism / The Buddha And Asceticism / The Middle Way / Liberation And Responsibility

Although the title of the series is The Science of Enlightenment Shinzen makes it clear that the Buddhist methodology  is only “a science of enlightenment”, meaning that it’s only one of the methods among other mystical practices in the core of other religious traditions, not to mention that enlightenment can also happen in the secular domain, serendipitously, due to some statistical probability. However, according to Shinzen, Buddhist meditation (as originally developed in India) is the most refined and systematic of the liberation-oriented technology. I couldn’t agree more.

In this CD Shinzen wears a hat of a Buddhist scholar lecturing on the history of the three pillars of Buddhism (Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana). He cautions the listeners that he’s only giving a generalized account of the history of the different schools of Buddhism. For those who don’t know the distinctions of the different Buddhist traditions, this is an excellent rundown of the evolution of Buddhism up to the present period.

Depending on where your bias is among the different schools of Buddhism, you might get a bit rattled by Shinzen’s critique of Mahayana and Vajrayana. Remember that Shinzen is an ordained monk in the Vajrayana school–Shingon, Japanese tradition–so I think he knows what he’s talking about. In any case, I will leave this debate to Buddhist scholars. I’m just here to learn a liberation-oriented technology and practice with diligence

Disc 12 – The Complexities Of Zen / Soto Zen And The Relevance Of Sitting Practice / The Practice Of Rinzai Zen / Vajrayana Buddhism / Sexuality And Spiritual Growth / The Relevance Of Ritual / Three Styles Of Buddhism

This is the continuation of Shinzen’s lecture on the different schools of Buddhism. Very juicy.

Disc 13 – Universal Mystical Experience / Different Expressions Of Enlightenment / Origins Of Meditative Experience / The Power Of Ceremony / Internal And External Technologies / The Intersection Of Science And Spirituality

In this CD Shinzen gives his due respect to Shamanism and the spiritual experiences of early humans but he makes it clear that he doesn’t subscribe to the notion of the Noble Savage. No pre-trans fallacy here. He also starts his discourse on the integration of Science and Spirituality.

Disc 14 – The Enlightened Scientist / The Human Significance Of The Impersonal / How Science Illuminates Meditation / A New Model For Enlightenment / New Perspectives On The One Reality / The Spiritual Themes Of Modern Physics / The Next Mode Of Human Awareness

This is the gist of the series: the cross-fertilization of the best of what the East and West have to offer to humanity. Shinzen offers a new model for Eastern enlightenment that is supported by the Western scientific paradigm. He calls for a cultivation of enlightened scientists. Take note that he’s not only asking for scientists who meditate. He wants a group of people who have PhDs and research experience who at the same time had experienced classical enlightenment and attain all the levels of samadhi. Here’s how he put it:

What we really need are individuals who understand both worlds really deeply…. I’m talking about people who could attain all levels of samadhi, have had deep enlightenment experiences, probably meditated for thirty, fourty, fifty years in a very disciplined way, on one hand, and have PhDs and research experience in the sciences on the other hand. And a third characteristic, are iconoclastic, are willing to see beyond the preconceptions of both traditional meditative practices and standard Western science.

What I think is needed, what I would like to see happen is, a generation of individuals like this appearing on this planet. Because ultimately, it has to be inside one person. The disciplines are too deep, they’re too subtle, for specialist in one to try communicate with specialist in the other using words. It’s very difficult. So I think what we need is a few dozen people that are really enlightened masters, number one, top notch scientists, number two, and willing to, as I say, willing to let go of preconceptions of both of those disciplines and look at something in a radically different way. And I think if we had several dozen human beings like that on this planet they could come up with some extraordinary new breakthroughs.

How cool is that?

According to Shinzen, his dream is to teach meditation at MIT. I hope that since he made these recordings he already had a chance to teach meditation at Ivy League schools. Shinzen should be invited to give a presentation on TED Talks. I share his passion for secularizing the dharma and making it more palatable to the scientific community.

Conclusion and Some Observations

Those who are familiar with Ken Wilber’s Integral Psychological Model will probably not find anything radically new on the Science of Enlightenment as far as broad integration is concerned. Wilber has been hashing out the integration of Western Science and Eastern contemplative disciplines for almost four decades now. However, I see Shinzen Young as one of those who are actually fleshing out the integration that Wilber has been calling for. He complements Wilber’s integration using his own style of integration. If Wilber is doing integration at the 10,000 feet level, Shinzen is doing it at the 1,000 feet level. Shinzen’s approach to secularizing the dharma and teaching Vipassana meditation–reworking the vocabulary, applying mathematical concepts, and using scientific metaphors–is, in my opinion, the best way of making it palatable for the scientific community and the academia.

Shinzen Young is one the most sane voices who are paving the way for the enlightenment of science. Since the publication of the Science of Enlightenment ten years ago, there already are promising signs that the cross-fertilization of Western science and Eastern meditative technology have been gathering momentum . One of the leading voices in the field is B. Alan Wallace (a Buddhist practitioner and scientist). See Wallace’s talk at Google: “Towards the First Revolution in the Mind Sciences“. On the more mainstream end, Sam Harris (a neuroscience researcher) is making noises about such integration. See Harris’s essays on the Huffington Post: “A Contemplative Science” and Shambhala Sun: “Killing the Buddha“.

As for Shinzen Young, he’s more active than ever and continues to refine his methodology . The most recent version of his secularized and science-based teaching can be found on his website, Basic Mindfulness.

However, one thing I noticed about Shinzen’s style of teaching Vipassana is that he doesn’t put emphasis on the Jhanas (as originally thought in the Theravada tradition), possibly because he doesn’t want to dwell on them or that he has not specialized in them. I assume that Shinzen’s goal is to make Vipassana meditation more compatible with Western Science, that’s why he prefers to focus on those teachings which could be easily translated into user-friendly scientific terms rather than teaching the jhanas as described in the original suttras of the Buddha. For those who are into more hardcore Theravada, I highly recommend checking out Daniel Ingram’s Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha.

The bottom line: Shinzen Young demystified the concept classical enlightenment, making “happiness independent of conditions” a realistic and tangible goal for people who choose to tread the path of liberation.

Thanks to Shinzen Young I now realize that my kind of practice is Vipassana, my proclivity is towards Theravada, and that, when I grow up, I want to become a hard-nosed rationalist Buddha.

UPDATE: 11/28/2009 – Here’s a video of Shinzen talking about the making of The Science of Enlightenment. I’m more impressed to learn that the whole audio series is from a spontaneous dharma talk. Looking forward to the book version!

Dennett: "…The title of my book concerns two spells: one of them is the veil of polite ignorance of religion."

Thurman: "The taboo to talk about it, right."

Dennett:
"That’s the spell I want to break. And I do break it. I *want* to break
it. But as for the question of whether I want to break the spell of
religion altogether, I am completely agnostic on that. I have not
decided how I feel about that. I don’t know enough. I do not know what
we would replace religion with."

Thurman: "Well, we have
evidence that in the Soviet Union and in China, when they tried to
replace religion they deified the leaders of the society, and they
became really destructive."

Dennett: "That was not, it seems, a good policy."

Thurman: "That was a really bad idea."

Dennett: "Any more than prohibition, we learned. The war on drugs is another bad idea."

Thurman:
"What about religion itself? You seem to use ‘religion’ as if it was
coterminous ???? with belief in a creator God. I appreciated you
leaving Buddhism out of the picture entirely, which some people think
of as a religion, although but I don’t. As I told you, I think of it as
one third religion. Certainly Buddhism does not believe in a creator
God, neither does Confucianism or Daoism. Some other traditions too
believe in multiplicities of gods and things like that. But that’s an
old-fashioned definition of religion. Religion defined as the belief in
God was Tyler’s definition."

Dennett: "My definition is a social system that postulates supernatural agents whose approval is to be sought."

Thurman: "They don’t have to be a creator?"

Dennett: "No."

Thurman:
"John Dewey, for example, wished to take the good elements of religion
away from religion and make them possible as an education for people.
He had a plan like that because he came from a fundamentalist
background. He saw that religion was having good effects on some people
in some cases. He was not, obviously, living under the current
Republican administration. But the thought about the dangers of the
institution, and how to take that out of that. But you are not really
proposing that, are you?"

Dennett: "No. In fact, I don’t know
whether some version of that would be a good idea or not. I don’t think
that Dewey had studied religion enough to know, and I haven’t studied
it enough to know. What I do think is important that we do right now,
is educate each other a lot more. I’ve been fascinated by the reaction
to one of my, it seems to me, quite uncontroversial suggestions, namely
that we should have a curriculum on world religions in the public
schools and for home schooling, with *facts* on world religions, and
that parents can teach their kids whatever they want as long as they
also teach this this. This has been called totalitarian by one
reviewer."

Thurman: "Really? That there’s a curriculum on world
religions so that students in schools learn about each other’s
religion? Just the factual things about them? Totalitarian?"

Dennett: "Totalitarian, yes."

Thurman:
"Well, you can be happy that you don’t have to worry about such a
reviewer. About ten years ago, here at Columbia, when this business was
going on in Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia, I came up with this. I
was quite exercised, because I happened to know someone from the
politics of that area. It was about the possibility of creating a
Religion Studies program in Sarajevo University. They didn’t have such
a thing. In communist countries the study of the world religions would
be done by scholars in the Atheism Department. So, they would study the
different kins of opiates of the people. They learned the textures?????
and scriptures and so forth, but there was no concept of a Department
of Religious Studies. That’s really an American thing. There are very
few European universities that have that. In Eastern Europe, once the
communist lid was taken off, these religions have rearisen in the very
fundamentalist form, unaffected by the last eighty years of communist
rule. That’s why the Protocols of Zion are recirculated in Poland and
Russia. These backward things would have no chance if religion was more
in dialogue with modernity. It has not been, because it has been
underground. I was shocked that some people who are trying to
ameliorate the conflicts and violence in those cultures still think
that religion is whithering away, so they don’t think that there should
be Religion Departments. And then those scholars don’t know what to do:
they go to Literature Departments; they have no place to mobilizethe
people in the streets of Sarajevo – in one block of Sarajevo you will
have a synagogue, a mosque, a catholic church and an orthodox church,
or maybe even several of them in one block – who have lived there for
decades without killing each other. When the Jews were thrown out of
Spain in 1429, they went to Sarajevo under the Aramens?????, and they
were much more tolerantly looked after. And yet, they never learned
about each others faiths. Therefore demagogues could exploit them to
demonize each other and we saw what happened in Yugoslavia."

Dennett: "Indeed."

But then the real fun begins when Dennett and Thurman started talking about consciousness and reincarnation. You have to read the whole thing to be entertained by it. Here’s a quote:

Thurman:
"There’s a Buddhist terminological ???? principle that I like to take a
moment to explain to you, and that is that all teachings or theories
about relative reality are only relative." … "Therefore, they’re only
valid or invalid in a certain context. All teachings about ultimate
reality are actually completely useless *except* the absolute negation
that there is no capturable ultimate reality, like a refutation of the
idea of an absolute God that creates the world, or any absolute,
actually, that’s relevant to the world. In a way, it’s a very simple
thing: an absolute can’t be relative, so therefore it’s irrelevant to
the relative. Only that theory has definitive status in Buddhist
philosophy. This basically opens all theorizing about relativity to
being relational and useful in this context or that. The theory of
involuntary rebirth – which it is better called than reincarnation, at
least for ordinary people – is considered very important in a general
ethical level, not in a deep metaphysical level."

Dennett: "They got to be."… "Now, I confess I simply can’t fathom most of what you just said."

Thurman: "That’s good!"

Dennett:
"I expect that there’s a great deal in what you say, but it’s the last
bit I want to ask you about. Why should a *moral* point of view hinge
at all on this idea of rebirth? Why not the life that we lead right
now? Aren’t we lucky to be alive? I certainly feel very fortunate to be
here."

Here’s my take on their discussion. I don’t dig Dennett using the label "brights" (I’m on Sam Harris side
on this one), but I do agree with Dennett that I don’t need a concept
of reincarnation to be moral.

As for consciousness, I resonate more
with Thurman’s Buddhist view but I don’t think he did a good job of
refuting Dennett in this dialogue. Dennett is a reductionist when it
comes to explaining consciousness. Not even Thurman can persuade him, especially
since Dennett doesn’t do yoga like Thurman does. So there’d be no
meeting of the minds here. And it’s better to just leave it at that. Anyway, I’m
not worried about Dennett since I don’t think he’d be crashing planes
on buildings or even run for office. In the meantime, I care more about
Dennett’s thesis on religion because it is more politically relevant
and philosophically sound.

Thanks to Jim (aka holotrope) for the heads up!

Siona (Director of Gaia Community) will be one of the guests during the broadcast. Nice.

I also just noticed that Linus Roache will be in the broadcast. Very interesting. If you don’t know Linus Roache then you’re probably not watching Law and Order, which is a shame because the program rocks! But if you’re a big fan of Batman you might remember that Roache played the very serene Thomas Wayne (Bruce Wayne’s dad) in Batman Begins.

Anyway, I’ll try to make some time to check out this event tomorrow. Hopefully, they make the audio archive freely available too, in case I miss it.

Tom
said: "We’ve received a few letters criticizing our “view from
15,000ft” take on the new atheists, but to be honest, that’s all it was
ever meant to be, which is why we called it a “field guide” on the
cover and in the ToC blurb – and an “entertaining” one at that! "

Good
point. In fairness to WIE, I did get the impression that the featured
article was not meant as a detailed take on the New Atheists. But that
was partly the reason for my disappointment. I’ve been wanting to see a
more integral take on the New Atheists and I was expecting it from WIE
(e.g. the excellent WIE issue on the Evolution Debate). Maybe in future issues?

See the comment thread on my Gaia blog for the rest of the discussion.

Thanks to Carter and Tom for their time and attention.

I just finished reading the featured article, Atheists with Attitude,
on the latest issue of What is Enlightenment? magazine. As usual, WIE
did a great job at presenting different perspectives, as well as the timeline
of the evolution of Atheism. However, I was a bit disappointed with
WIE’s take on the New Atheists for the following reasons.

For a magazine which I consider
to be a leading edge on spirituality in general, and integral
spirituality in particular, I was expecting a more integral take on the
New Atheists from the editors and writers. But WIE only presented a
very general overview of the New Atheists. Although WIE has some nice
things to say about the New Atheists, the general tone of the article
is a negative slant against them. Nothing wrong with that. There are
indeed philosophical areas where the New Atheists fall short. But WIE
didn’t make detailed distinctions on the differences between the New
Atheists. In short, no teasing apart the partial right and partial wrong. There’s no ranking.

The WIE staffers expressed
their disagreements with the New Atheists but they weren’t specific on
what areas they agreed with and what areas they have issues with. Take this quote from the featured article. (Emphasis mine.)

“As for the editors of WIE, we remain curious observers of the new atheism, encouraged by its articulate defense of modernity, science, and reason, but disturbed by its tendency to demonize all things spiritual and to associate rationality exclusively with a materialistic view of the universe.”

“Demonize all things spiritual?” Sam Harris is not demonizing spirituality. He’s even promoting it, albeit indirectly, with his Buddhist-flavored approach to consciousness. Harris doesn’t even want to be identified as Atheist, fer Chrissakes (too late for that though). Even Christopher Hitchens has discussed the importance of separating the numinous from the supernatural. WIE had made the usual error of lumping the New Atheists like a blob, treating them as a leviathan with a single head that of Dawkins. (I consider Dawkins to be the extreme materialists among them four–Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris.)

Also, check out this quote from WIE’s review of The Four Horsemen. (Emphasis mine.)

“But
the primary contribution of The Four Horsemen is its capacity to
stimulate the mind, to provoke one to reconsider the impact of the
religious traditions and rethink one’s own beliefs and attitudes toward
these powerful cultural behemoths that continue to have an influence on
human life. Will you agree with the new atheists? Maybe not–we didn’t–but
we appreciated their efforts to make us all think more clearly about
what we actually believe about life, and about what God, gods, or
nondeities we have faith in, and why.”

Um, ok. So how does
integral spirituality or evolutionary spirituality deal with radical
Christians and Islam? What about the New Atheists take on
multiculturalism and secularism? How about their call to action and appeal to
religious moderates? What’s good about studying religion from a
scientific perspective? Is it a good idea to compulsory teach world
religions (as well as Atheism) to children in school? I like to hear
specifics rather than just an integral view from 15,000 feet.

And finally, there’s no mention of Ayaan Hirsi Ali,
giving the impression that the New Atheists are only comprised of angry
white men (Ayaan Hirsi Ali is neither white, nor a man). I consider Ayaan Hirsi Ali to be the most gutsy among the New Atheists since her life is literally on the line whenever she speaks against radical Islam and takes on European multiculturalism.

All in all I feel that WIE didn’t do enough justice with what the New Atheists represent. Yes, it’s true that there’s nothing new with majority of their philosophical arguments
that the Enlightenment thinkers hadn’t already dealt with. Then again,
the New Atheists are tackling the same issue on a different
interconnected global stage. So the stakes are much higher and the
dynamics more complex than it was during the Age of Enlightenment.
Never before in our recorded history that the issue of science,
religion, and Atheism capture the attention of the global media (e.g.
news network, newspapers, internet, blogosphere, etc.), and the New Atheists
deserve credit for reviving this age-old philosophical debate, no
matter how limited their perspectives may be.

That said, I hope that this is only WIE’s intro feature on the New
Atheists. I’m looking forward to WIE teasing apart, ranking, and then
putting the New Atheists on a more integral perspective.