Who am I?

“Who am I?” is the form of enquiry that is the “principle means” for achieving “that happiness which is one’s nature” according to Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), who achieved spiritual awakening when he was only 17.

His name was “Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi.” “Bhagavan” is one of the names of God, which, in the Hindu tradition is also used as title for someone who has realized identity with unity (the Absolute, Brahman). “Maharshi” (maha rishi) means “great sage” (great rishi). He came from a middle class brahmin family in South India. His name of “Venkataraman” was shortened to “Ramana.” I here follow the example of his devotees who usually spoke of him as “Bhagavan.”

Bhagavan’s chief teaching was advaita, which is the ultimate doctrine of non-duality: Being is One and is manifested throughout all beings throughout the universe.

This means that what we usually think of as “the world” is both real and unreal. It is unreal as a separate, self-subsistent entity, but it is real as a manifestation of the Absolute.

“Who am I?” is designed to help bring the ego to the point where it ceases to function, thus enabling apprehension of the resplendent yet qualityless Absolute.

Bhagavan wrote, “The enquiry ‘Who am I?’ is the principle means to the removal of all misery and the attainment of the supreme bliss” [from The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, 11th ed., p. 13. All direct quotations in this post are from that work].

When conceptualization ceases, apprehension of unity becomes possible. “When the mind, which is the cause of all cognition and of all actions, becomes quiescent, the world will disappear.”

The mind is the set of all thoughts including judgments, perceptions, emotions, imaginings, and remembrances. When there is an initial disengagement from all thoughts, a spiritual breakthrough occurs.

“Apart from thoughts, there is no such thing as mind. Therefore, thought is the nature of mind. Apart from thoughts, there is no independent entity called the world.”

In other words, “Who am I?” has the same function as a Zen koan. Indeed, when Zen students do not feel that the koan Mu resonates with them, “Who am I?” is given in some Zen sanghas as an initial koan.

It’s helpful to think of “Who am I?” as a natural koan in the sense that it is independent of the zen or even buddhist tradition.

“The thought ‘Who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization.” Here, “Self” (with a capital ‘S’) refers to unity (Brahman, the Absolute, Being), which is sometimes called the Big Self to distinguish it from the little self, which is the egoic mind.

It’s critical to realize that the answer to the “Who am I?” question is not a thought or set of thoughts. If you are using “Who am I?” to question and you answer “Who am I?” with an intelligible description, you are on the wrong path. You are thinking about “Who am I?” rather than meditating.

All that is necessary is constantly to hold on to the “Who am I?” question itself. Try exhaling “Who?” with every exhalation. The idea of using it as a spiritual practice is to bore into “Who am I?” with a questioning attitude without thinking about the answer to “Who am I?”

Suppose that you are focusing on “Who am I?” and find that some thought or other arises. What should you do? Do not get entangled in it or pursue it. Drop it and ask yourself, “To whom did that thought arise?”

These are Bhagavan’s instructions on this important point:

“As each thought arises, one should inquire with diligence, ‘To whom has this thought arisen?’ The answer that would emerge would be ‘To me.’ Thereupon if one inquires ‘Who am I?’, the mind will go back to its source; and the thought that arose will become quiescent. With repeated practice in this manner, the mind will develop the skill to stay in its source.”

Simple, isn’t it? It’s not even necessary to be literate or to have any formal education to understand it.

If you have ever tried it, however, you may have a sense how difficult it is to do. It’s a simple skill, but one that is not easy to master.

The idea is to have only one focus point, the “Who am I?” question. To hold on to it persistently is to develop a one-pointed mind that is not permitted to wander to other forms (objects, things). Both liking and disliking should be eschewed.

Awakening (enlightenment) occurs “when there is absolutely no ‘I’-thought. That is called ‘Silence.’”

Silence is the language of the Absolute, of Being, of God. The Absolute is the real world.

It is the achievement of non-attachment. “As thoughts arise, destroying them utterly without any residue in the very place of their origin is non-attachment.”

This is knowing the truth. The mind of one who knows the truth never leaves the Absolute. “Who am I?” is a way to transition from forms to formlessness.

Knowing the truth is happiness. “There is no happiness in any object of the world.” Gaining, identifying with, or desiring any form cannot yield happiness.

“Desirelessness is wisdom. The two are not different; they are the same.”

Desirelessness occurs when the mind is not focused on any form. It is not seeking what is other than the Absolute. Wisdom is never focusing on any form, in other words, always being detached.

In other words, we usually answer the question, “Who am I?” by identifying ourselves with some form or set of forms such as our bodies or our autobiographies.  Any such identification obstructs happiness.

“Simple, changeless being is one’s true nature . . . successful meditation . . . Those who follow the path of enquiry realize that the mind which remains at the end of the enquiry is Brahman.”

This is what a modern Hindu sage says. He doesn’t say it the way, for example, a Buddhist sage would say it, but it seems to me that both are pointing in exactly the same direction.

If you have not yet followed the “Who am I?” enquiry to its end and are not even trying, why not?

It’s quite possible that the word “happiness” is misleading. A better word is “liberation”:

Asked how long should one practice focusing on “Who am I?,” Bhagavan answered, “Until the mind attains effortlessly its natural state of liberation from concepts, that is till the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ exists no longer.”

In other words, you may think that your nature is to be a separate self. It’s not. The self/nonself distinction is merely conceptual.

You are unity.

This entails that you lack nothing and that you are infinitely valuable.

“Self-realization which is permanent is the only true accomplishment.” There is nothing else to be done. Furthermore, this isn’t so much a positive accomplishment as an uncovering of what is already there.

“If one enquires, ‘Who am I?’, one will see that there is no such thing as the ‘I.’”

Happiness is the “peaceful repose” that occurs once the ego/I is uprooted: “this egoless condition is the common goal.”

To realize (not just think!) this is to be liberated and fulfill the purpose of life. It is to realize oneself as “the perfect Bliss of non-duality.”

According to advaita, this is the sole reality.

If you are not yet on the path to fulfilling your purpose, why not? Why not focus on “Who am I?”

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from this post on “Who am I?,” please pass it along.

Related posts: there are many related posts in the spiritual well-being category of this blog including Realize Being and Silence.

Related resource:  The Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi (11th ed.), particularly chapter 2, “Who am I?”

Whence restlessness? What does it mean?  How can it be cured?

Do you suffer from it?

If so, you are not alone. It’s very common. In fact, it’s so common that, when you notice it in others, you may think there’s nothing wrong with it. (It’s even easier to notice it in others than in yourself.)

It’s especially easy to notice when others are sitting. Notice how many people are almost incessantly swinging one of their legs or jiggling their feet. Of course, people in rocking chairs are almost always in motion. Notice how few people actually sit still.

I myself have often exhibited it. In fact, it was so common in my own family that I used to think it was genetic! There were similarities and differences in the way it was manifested in myself, my siblings, and my parents, but it was so common that I used to think it was normal.

Ask yourself, “Which age group exhibits the most restlessness?” I don’t know, but my guess is that it is most characteristic of late adolescence. If not foolishness, it at least always signals immaturity.

Notice how, even in stable settings such as a classroom or a meeting, so many sets of eyes are looking around. It’s as if they are asking, “What else is there?”

Contrast that with other animals. What would you think if your dog or cat, instead of lying placidly at your feet, was in constant motion? Might you not take it to a vet? What if you visited a zoo and saw polar bears or tigers incessantly jiggling or wiggling? Might you not wish that they could be returned to life outside a cage?

However normal for humans, restlessness is not a good sign.

It’s certainly not attractive. Dating guru David DeAngelo [aka Eben Pagan] advises men who want to attract women to notice and eliminate all signs of behavioral restlessness.

Notice, too, how, when people are fully engaged and focused on a task, they exhibit no signs of restlessness. The same person who always seems to be restless sitting around the living room never exhibits any signs of it while playing hockey or having sex or reading an enthralling novel.

Restlessness signals dissatisfaction.

Behavioral manifestations of it always indicate a desire for something else, for something more, for something different. “I want more” is the implicit, fundamental judgment behind it. It’s a sign that the present moment, whatever is going on here and now, is less than wholly satisfactory. Such agitation signals life being lived poorly.

Let us agree to use “sage” to refer to someone who lives well. Think of sages you have either known personally or read about. Would you say they are restless? Do you think of them as jiggling or wiggling or agitated when they are just sitting around?

Surely not. When they are sitting, they are just sitting. They are still, calm, peaceful. They are at home in the present moment, living deeply and satisfactorily in the here and now. Sages are sages. They neither suffer from dissatisfaction nor signal restlessness.

Sages lack a future orientation. They do not use the present to try to live in the future. They are not wanting the next moment to be better than the present moment.

Wanting to gain more than is available in the present is foolish, not wise. The reason is simple: when the future does appear, it is always present. The future never appears as future; it can only appear as present.

The future is a set of thoughts. It’s nothing but a set of imaginings. It’s unreal. Therefore, trying to live in the future is attempting to live in unreality!

The immature, of whatever age, seem not yet to have understood this. The boredom of teenagers hanging around a mall is a symptom of immaturity, a failure to live an examined life. The root cause is the same even if we are instead thinking of bored oldsters in a nursing home.

Age does not automatically cure it because it does not automatically cure dissatisfaction.

What cures restlessness? That which cures dissatisfaction.  No dissatisfaction, no restlessness.

Since dissatisfaction always comes from separation, overcoming separation cures dissatisfaction.

So what cures dissatisfaction? The release from incessant conceptualization.

Concepts are principles of classification. To conceptualize, to use concepts, is to think discursively; it always involves separating (sorting, categorizing, classifying). However useful it can be, to conceptualize is to divide into two groups, namely, one group of objects (forms, things) to which the concept is thought to be applicable and another group to which it is not thought to be applicable.

If you are always conceptualizing, you must miss the satisfaction (peace, bliss, joy, harmony) that comes from awareness of unity.

Sages since at least the time of the Buddha have been saying this. For example, Sengcan, the third patriarch in ancient China, wrote in the oldest zen document: “Remaining in duality, / you’ll never know of unity.” [Rochester Zen Center translation.]

To experience unity directly is automatically to cure dissatisfaction. To cure dissatisfaction is automatically to cure restlessness.

How do you experience unity directly? Even for a moment, just stop conceptualizing. It’s not easy, but it’s that simple.

Sages say that living as we normally do, in other words, incessantly conceptualizing, is like dreaming. If we were to stop incessantly conceptualizing, we’d stop dreaming. Sengcan: “When you no longer are asleep, / all dreams will vanish by themselves.”

What we typically miss is experiencing the unity or essential interconnectedness of all objects. Lost, we exhibit restlessness because we haven’t yet found an object or set of objects that works satisfactorily as a self. The fundamental error is that we are looking in the wrong place: there is no self among objects. As long as we keep looking among objects for a self, our quest will be unsuccessful.

Gaining isn’t necessary. The key is to stop even trying to accumulate more and more.

The reason we try to gain is because we think there is something we lack. All desire comes from the fundamental, usually implicit judgment that there is something else that we need to live better. There isn’t.

Sengcan: “If mind does not discriminate, / all things are as they are, as One.”

Stop discriminating, even for a moment, and you’ll realize there is nothing else that we need to live better. Living well is available in the present moment, right here right now.  Living well is living in unity.

Curing restlessness is not easy, but it’s simple.

Sadly, this explains why restlessness is so common: sages are uncommon.

The good news, though, is that it doesn’t have to be this way.

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from this, please pass it along.

Some related posts: Learning from Nature, Surrendering, The Future, Time Consciousness

Related resource: Eckhart Tolle’s “Realizing the Power of Now” [6 CD set].

Unthinking performance is masterful performance that is free of thoughts.  It’s liberated from attachment to the egoic self.

This is just another way of talking about the topic of my last post on character possession, namely, that creative acts come from thoughtless awareness of  Being.

In a short article in this week’s The Economist, Ian Leslie argues in favor of unthinking performance by drawing on academic research as well as on examples from sports and music.

Reaching genuinely masterful performance has two stages, namely, years of learning followed by letting go of egoic thinking when it most counts.

Leslie cites a semi-final match at last year’s U.S. Open between tennis masters Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. On a critical match point, Federer seemed to exhibit “mental frailty” while Djokovic returned a Federer serve with “nonchalance” and “such lethal precision that Federer couldn’t get near it.” Djokovic said later that he tends to do that on important points because letting go “kinda works.”

This is the kind of story that will be familiar to you if you have read The Inner Game of Tennis:  The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it.

What, though, about verbal performances such as writing? Can unthinking performance work as well in that area?

Yes.

When the middle-aged Bob Dylan was interviewed by 60 Minutes, he talked, as Leslie put it, “wistfully” about “his youthful ability to write songs without even trying.” His song “Like a Rolling Stone” is recognized as one of the greatest songs ever written. Dylan said it gushed out of him like a “piece of vomit.”

Thinking can be good.  Thinking can be bad.

Even Zen masters, whose lives tend to move from one unthinking performance to the next, are not in favor of giving up thinking. Of course fresh thinking can be extremely valuable! Some problems cannot be solved without it. There’s no issue about that.

It’s the other 90% of thinking that is bad for us. It obstructs creativity, whereas being in a nonegocentric trance enhances creativity. Creativity is spontaneous, light, exhilarating, liberating.

90% of our thoughts are repetitious, needless chatter. We drag these thoughts with us into each new experience thus deadening the experience. They are heavy; they weight down on us. These thoughts are incessant background noise that diminishes what would otherwise be joyous experiences.

This wisdom has been available for centuries. Sengcan, who wrote the oldest extant zen document, writes that, if you “live in bondage to your thoughts,” it’ll be a “heavy burden [that] weighs you down.” [Rochester Zen Center translation.]

When was the last time you picked up a glass of water and took a drink thoughtlessly yet with alert awareness of your action? You probably cannot remember. A simple act like that can be beautiful.

Now, though, it is so familiar that you do it routinely without paying attention to it because you are busy “thoughting” (to use Roshi Philip Kapleau’s word) about something else.

If you can’t take a drink of water well, joyfully, lightly, how can you expect to wash yourself well? Or dress yourself well? Or do your work well? Or sustain a friendship well?

What incessant, needless thoughting does is rob attention from whatever you are doing in the present moment, even if that’s only breathing.

Thoughting separates and, so, creates dissatisfaction. It divides attention. It blocks unthinking performance.

There are all kinds of practices that are available to diminish it. All the best are very simple. However, they are also very difficult. They demand relentless practice of the right kind.

The point is to return the serve or compose the song or drink the water egolessly, thoughtlessly, yet with focused awareness.

The catch is that Djokovic spent years practicing tennis, Dylan spent years practicing song writing, and, although you don’t remember it, you spent a long time practicing the coordination necessary to pick up a glass of water and drink it.  No practicing, no mastery.

All spiritual practices are designed to grind down egocentricity. Mastering one is not easy.

The ideal of the sage is the ideal of making every act an act of unthinking performance.

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from this, please pass it along.

Related post:   Character possession.

Related resource: Ian ALeslie, “NONCOGITO, ERGO SUM,” The Economist, 12-18 May 2012.

Character possession occurs when the characters that an author creates take over the story.

What an interesting phenomenon!

How could it occur? How could characters that an author creates surprise that author? It seems to make no sense.

My eleventh book, A Dark Time, will be available on May 22nd from Amazon.com. It’s my first work of fiction.

Whether it’s true or not, I have always preferred to think of myself as someone who could tell a good story. There’s at least some evidence for that. For example, I lettered as a quarterback in prep school. At the football banquet, I got telling stories to a lot of my teammates who had gathered around me. They had to interrupt me to give out the awards!

Those stories, though, were true. I didn’t invent them. So I wondered if I could tell a good story if I created it.

In addition to challenging myself to determine if I had what it took to finish such a project as well as just start it and getting published, I wanted to experience character possession.

Eventually, I’m pleased to report, I did experience character possession. The characters I’d created finished A Dark Time for me.

(By itself, this doesn’t mean that I wrote a good story. Perhaps experiencing character possession is a necessary condition for writing a good story. It’s certainly insufficient. A quality tale also requires talent as well as the sustained development of that talent.)

How is character possession possible?

Using my standard terminology of Being and Becoming, let me suggest for your consideration that character possession occurs when a story, which is temporal and, so, obviously an event in Becoming, has its origin in Being.

When writers talk about their muses working on them, they may be trying to articulate this connection with Being.

The thesis I’m suggesting is not novel. Eckhart Tolle, for example, has repeatedly said that the difference in quality between pulp fiction and literature is that only the latter manifests “presence,” which is a label for what he calls elsewhere “Being” or “space consciousness” or “the unmanifested.”

The manifestation itself, the sequence of words, occurs in Becoming. However, if its origin is in Becoming, it is merely the product of thoughts (mind), which necessarily limits its quality. A work like that is, since it comes from a person, obviously limited.

On the other hand, if its origin is limitless Being, although a person may be given credit for it, it’s not really a personal work.

Think of becoming enthralled by a great musical or athletic performance. In a clear sense, the musician or the athlete who is “in the zone” is an agent of something beyond. Yes, that person had talent and worked hard for a long time to develop that talent. There’s more to it, though, than just that.

What Tolle calls “presence” is the alert yet thoughtless awareness characteristic of mastery. Being is the wellspring from which all the different kinds of creative endeavors flow. The range of creativity is enormous; it includes, for example, the physics of an Einstein and the writing of popular songs. (Tolle uses as an example of the latter “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and he could have chosen hundreds of others.)

Although I wouldn’t have thought about it in quite this way, I was conscious of character possession before I even began to write A Dark Time. In fact, I doubt if I’d ever have shown it to anyone if I hadn’t experienced character possession while writing it. If you don’t tap into Being when making something, why trouble others with it?

Again, though, merely tapping into Being is insufficient for excellence. Even a Michael Jordon in his prime while playing in the zone didn’t make every single shot.

The key to accessing Being is thoughtless awareness. Thoughts are objects (forms, items in Becoming). Being is not an object.

An analogy may help. Visualize a room. Please actually take a few moments to do it.

Now, ask yourself how you would describe the room. You’d describe, perhaps, its furniture and flooring and lighting and wall decorations. Notice, though, that they are all objects! All those familiar objects occur in a background. The background is like Being. There would be no Becoming without Being. What we normally do is to focus exclusively on objects (forms, Becoming).  (This is why Tolle sometimes uses ‘space consciousness’ to contrast with objects in space.)

What great writers and other great artists sometimes enable us to do is to stop taking Being for granted. Being manifests in Becoming.

While objects can be pointed out, Being cannot be pointed out – but those objects wouldn’t be there without it.

We access Being when we stop focusing exclusively on thoughts and other objects.

How does this apply to character possession?

It’s easy to invent a character. Just put together a list of qualities that you want that character to have. (Many minor characters, even in great works of literature, are as dead and static as just such a list.) There’s no flesh and blood in a list. It’s a character born of mind.

It’s not so easy, though, to bring a character to life. When that occurs, character possession occurs. It’s a character who comes into mind from beyond mind.

So I was pleased that I was able to experience character possession when writing A Dark Time. If, however, you think that I am taking credit for it, you are clueless about the topic of this post.

I had the discipline to put the seat of my pants on the seat of my chair for hours every morning for several months; consequently, I should be given the credit (or blame!) for that.

I did not, though, create the experience of character possession. I was only an instrument (and, undoubtedly, a poor one).

It did.

As always, if you know someone who may benefit from reading this post, please pass it along.

Related post:  Rereading.

Related Resource:  My The 7 Steps to Mastery.

This post is not just about buying a boat: it’s about buying any major items that you don’t really need such as a larger house, a vacation cottage or condo, an airplane, a fancier automobile, a motorcycle, or whatever.

Everyone makes mistakes. It’s almost always easier and less expensive to learn from the mistakes of others than from your own. So congratulations for reading material like this! It may help you the next time you are buying a boat or something similar.

There’s a right way and a wrong way of buying a boat.

The right way has three steps: decide what you are trying to accomplish, research your potential purchase, and pay for it properly.

Thanks to the internet as well as traditional publications such as Consumer Reports and the Yellow Pages, it’s much, much easier to do the research than it used to be. So the second step should not be a problem.

Sometimes, people are not clear about what they are trying to accomplish. They sometimes fail to think through a major purchase. The first step can be a problem.

My suspicion, though, is that the step that causes the most trouble is the third. Still, let’s consider them in turn.

I.  As Aristotle pointed out two and a half millennia ago, it’s impossible to make a rational decision without first deciding what you are trying to accomplish.

You might be interested in buying a boat because you want to go fishing or water-skiing or sailing or speeding on the ocean blue or just cruising slowly around a small inland lake.

Many people try to use one boat for many tasks. They may try to use a fishing boat also for water-skiing or a pontoon boat for fishing.

What is your primary purpose for buying a boat? Do you also want it to serve any secondary purposes? One boat can’t do everything.

What else will you need? For example, when you are buying a boat will you also need an outboard engine, life preservers, or a trailer?

Can you get them in a package deal without compromising exactly what you want? Where will you store you boat?

I happened to do step one correctly. Unless you count a canoe as a boat, I waited until I was middle-aged to purchase a boat. By then, I knew exactly what I wanted: I wanted a small boat for camping and fishing in Canada. I purchased a 14’ boat and matching trailer that has served me perfectly for many years.

Initially, I purchased an 8 hp Honda outboard for it, but experience taught me that that was too small an engine. I soon traded it in on a 9.9 Honda outboard and it, too, has served me well for many years. That boat, trailer, and outboard are exactly suited to my needs. Furthermore, when it’s empty of all my camping gear, and there’s just me and perhaps one other person in it, people have often remarked how amazingly fast it is on the water!

II. Obviously, I didn’t do as well with step two because I initially purchased an engine that was too small. However, as I recall (and it was decades ago), I’m not sure that, at that time, I could have afforded the larger engine anyway.

(Incidentally, even though the boat could handle it, in my case an even larger engine would not be appropriate. Many inland northern lakes do not permit boats with over 10 hp engines, which is probably why there is a 9.9 hp engine manufactured. Since I sometimes go on those lakes, my engine is the perfect size for my purposes.)

Don’t forget subjective as well as objective research. For example, suppose you are buying an exercise machine such as a treadmill or an elliptical machine and discover the top-rated kind. It would nevertheless be a gamble to purchase it without trying it. In other words, it may be the top-rated kind for most people but not for you.

III. The real reason I wrote this post is to try to prevent people who are buying a boat or other luxury item from wasting money by not paying for it properly.

If you win the lottery and have always wanted a boat, just go ahead and buy one you like.

(Actually, that’s similar to what happened to me. When my aunt died, she left her sister, my mother, a $10,000 life insurance policy. My mother gave each of her 5 children $2000. I used my money to buy my first boat, trailer, and outboard engine. I named my boat after my aunt. I didn’t want just to use the money to pay bills; I wanted something that, year after year, would remind me of my aunt and mother, which is what I have. So, for me, buying a boat resulted in a memorial as well as a boat.)

People waste enormous amounts of money buying boats, planes, luxury cars, huge houses, and so on. It’s possible to buy exactly the same items but to do it properly.

However, to do that, you must let go of the desire for immediate gratification. When it comes to money, it’s important to think long term.

Let’s suppose that you are interested in buying a boat because you don’t have one, you’ve wanted one for many years, and you have $20,000 to spend buying one.

Simple question:  Should you spend that money to buy a boat?

Simple answer:  No!

Instead, buy a long term investment and let that investment pay for the boat.

For example, put that $20,000 down on a small apartment house. Using good management techniques, improve the cash flow of that apartment building. Then, either wait until you have set aside enough money from that cash flow to purchase the boat or finance the boat using that monthly cash flow. Either way, you’ll wind up with both a boat and an investment property that keeps generating income!

Unfortunately, even when they hear this, many people just don’t get it. Apparently, they are overwhelmed by their desire for immediate gratification. They must have the boat or larger house or plane or whatever now!

Imagine going through life like that. Imagine being a slave to desires. What a terrible, foolish, and unnecessary way to live!

If you are that out of control, even good financial advice won’t do you any good.

However, if you are willing to take charge of your desires instead of letting them run your life, then you can begin to put your money into investments that will, if you do it well, buy you all the luxury goods you could ever want.

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from this, please pass it along.

Related posts: There’s Nothing to Gain and Joy.

Additional resources: Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter, Rich Dad Poor Dad and The Cashflow Quadrant.

Is rereading books for enjoyment a good idea?

I recently sent queries to book bloggers to see if they wanted a copy to review of a novel of mine that is coming out next month. It was striking to notice how many of them referred to themselves in various ways as being addicted to reading.

One of the bloggers happened to mention to me that she never reread a novel in her life. Is that a good idea?

I wonder if habitually reading novels is a good idea. Is habitually reading books for enjoyment a good idea?

People who don’t read regularly have a tendency to stay stuck on the same thoughts, which, since the world is in flux, cannot be a good practice. On the other hand, don’t some people read too much? Presumably there’s a middle way.

What is at issue here is only reading for enjoyment. Obviously, if you are a Descartes scholar, you’d better have read Meditations on First Philosophy many, many times. If you are an editor who gets paid to edit books, that’s a different matter.

My inclination is to exclude poetry as well. If you don’t have some favorite poems that you have read many times, shame on you!

Furthermore, nobody knows many languages. Didn’t William Foxwell Albright know 25 languages (about half of which he deciphered himself)? If there’s an important book in a language you don’t read, it’s certainly a good idea to read different translations of it. In my case, this applies to such epics as The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid and Dante’s Comedy. I’ve read them in different translations and benefitted from each reading.

Many people are history buffs. Would someone who is a history buff of the American Civil War reread certain histories of it? He or she would likely read many different histories of it for enjoyment, but probably not the same one.

Does anyone read classical works of mathematics, logic, and science? Certainly. Do they, however, ever reread them for enjoyment? That’s very unlikely.

So in thinking about this topic, let’s think only about rereading novels. Aren’t they the books most likely to be reread for enjoyment?

I’m presently reading Jane Erye for the first time. It was my mother’s favorite book when she was a girl. I seem to recall her telling me that she reread it many times. If so, I can understand that. It’s a genuine work of literature.

Notice that you would never reread pulp fiction such as mysteries, thrillers, or romances. Unless you forgot them completely, once you know what happens, what would be the point of rereading them?

For example, I myself have read all the Tarzan novels, all the Sherlock Holmes stories, all the Dashiell Hammett novels, and all the Nero Wolfe stories. At the time I read them (many years ago), I enjoyed reading them. I have no interest ever rereading them.

Life is short. Every experience has an opportunity cost: time you devote to reading pulp fiction is time that cannot be spent doing anything else.

Thinking about reading novels again for enjoyment leads to other questions.

What’s the difference between pulp fiction and literature?

Nobody would seriously argue that one ought to spend time rereading pulp fiction. It would make sense to reread at least good examples of it only if you wanted to write it yourself. If you wanted, for example, to write a thriller, a reasonable way to begin would be to read, and, possibly, to reread the last ten bestsellers that were thrillers or, perhaps, the ten all-time bestselling thrillers so that you could emulate them. That, though, would not be reading for enjoyment.

Eckhart Tolle argues somewhere that the difference in quality between pulp fiction and literature is that only literature is writing from “presence,” which is one of the ways he talks about the direct experience of Being, about the spiritually awakened life. That’s a very interesting idea.

If, though, it is correct, it is likely only to be a necessary rather than a sufficient condition. In other words, it’s possible to be spiritually awake and still not be a good storyteller. Putting it differently, even assuming Tolle is correct, it would still take talent and the development of talent for someone who is spiritually awake to create literature.

If that’s correct, it would go a long way towards explaining why literature is more valuable than pulp fiction. As when we witness great athletic feats or musical performances done from Presence, reading a novel that is a genuine work of literature can be a wonderful experience.

Still, is rereading novels that are works of literature valuable? That some of us do it is indisputable. It is optimizing or optimific to do it?

There’s no way to answer until we understand why certain kinds of activities are optimizing or optimific. To understand that is to become clear about the connection, if any, between reading literature and living well, living the good life.

If there were no connection, then neither reading literature in the first place nor rereading it would be justifiable. To argue that there is some connection would be making some assumptions about both the nature of literature and the nature of living well.

Let’s assume that a novel is a work of literature only if it has been written from Being and also demonstrates talent as well as mastery of the art of storytelling.

What is living well?

If Tolle and other spiritual teachers are correct, living well is living in Becoming from the perspective of Being, in other words, experiencing life in Becoming without being trapped in Becoming, being spiritually awake.

If that’s what living well is, it is not even necessary to be literate to live well! If so, obviously, reading even novels that are literature is not necessary for living well.

Nevertheless, reading novels that are literature may be helpful for living well. If so, then rereading them may be justifiable.

Great novels are centered on great conflicts. My own tendency is to read them as indirect arguments, as gentle expositions of a point of view that emerges from an important struggle.

Great novels often show us how not to live, which is a way of suggesting a better way to live. Eliminating different possibilities that fail is certainly a socializing, civilizing task.

Literature enables us to experience life vicariously from the perspective of other people. It undermines prejudices and fosters identification with others. Since spiritual awakening requires bursting the normal boundaries of ego or self, reading literature can prepare the soil for the flowering of awakening, and, so, be an important educational tool.

This is neither a new nor a radical idea. For example, Charlotte Bronte has Jane Eyre think: “Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.” A function of literature is to break down conceptual barriers between people, which enables us to become more loving.

Similarly, paraphrasing what Wittgenstein said about language, David Loy writes: “The limits of my stories are the limits of my world.” Since literature expands the boundaries of our worlds, it expands the boundaries of our lives. This is because, as Alasdair MacIntyre puts it, “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’”

What about spiritual awakening? Alan Clements: “The only true story is ‘no story’ and therefore one must dissolve into the one and only freedom – the ultimate nonstory – that of union with emptiness, or zeroness, or nirvana . . . “ Literature cannot get us there, but it can enable progress.

What about repetition? When we fail to learn a lesson, doesn’t life give us the opportunity to relearn it?

It can be quicker and less painful to learn and, if necessary, relearn about life lessons from books rather than outside them. At least if you are like me, you may have a tendency not to understand one of life’s important lessons at the first opportunity you have to learn it. It may require re-exposure.

If so, at least sometimes, it may be a good idea to reread novels that are works of literature. There’s nothing necessarily wrong about rereading books for enjoyment.

Doing it too frequently is a hindrance to living well, but, since literature can aid the journey to living well, rereading it occasionally may well be helpful.

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from this, please forward it.

Related posts:  RELATED POSTS:  Knowing What To Do, Your Self, and Epistemology.
Additional resources: the works of Eckhart Tolle and David R. Loy’s The World is Made of Stories.

Do you spend much of life leaning, being temporally off balance?

That’s always been my foolish tendency, and I suspect that most people share it.

The future cuts both ways.

This is an important reason why we are stressed. Stress occurs when two forces are pulling in opposite directions. Even as we are leaning into it, we both desire and fear the future.

Because we are dissatisfied in the present moment, we look forward to not being dissatisfied in the future. We have a tendency to think that our lives may improve over time. We imagine future fulfillment.

For example, we may hope for a grand encounter, a wonderful long term relationship with a new lover. We may hope to win the lottery and end our money problems. We may hope to become healthier by losing weight and reducing insulin resistance. We may hope that our children will overcome their obstacles and begin living more satisfactorily. And so on.

We have a tendency to hope that our present problems will be solved in the future. So we may look forward to improved lives. We want that to happen.

On the other hand, all we really know about the future is that it will mean the end of us. Death is inescapable. Even worse, we have no idea when it may occur!

Even if death is still a long ways off, we may become seriously ill. We may lose even what is giving us satisfaction today. Certainly, we shall grow older – and probably fatter and more wrinkled as well.

We are, therefore, quite stressed. We are both anticipating and fearing what will happen tomorrow. We are leaning.

How can we stop leaning?

It helps to remind ourselves that the future never arrives or, rather, that it always arrives only in the guise of the present moment. We never experience the future. We only ever experience the present. It is always now.

Therefore, if fulfillment or salvation is to be found at all, it must be found in the present moment. How could it be found in the future if the future is never experienced?

The future is nothing but a set of thoughts, mere imaginings. Since we control what we think about, we control the future.

Sengcan was the third Zen ancestor in ancient China and the author of the oldest extant Zen document. In it he says: “The wise do not strive after goals; / the foolish put themselves in bonds.” [Rochester Zen Center translation]

I confess that, even though I had it memorized, I used to ignore that stanza. Why?

I always seemed engaged on some self-help project or other to become more successful. For example, I attended school to learn how to become more successful in the future. Talk about leaning!

I was like a perpetual undergraduate who was working hard to make the future better for myself and others.

A noble flaw? A grave mistake?

I’m not denying that it is possible to follow directions and to become successful in different areas of life. It certainly is possible, over time, to lose weight and keep it off, to become stronger and fitter, to increase your net worth, to date more people, to become a better parent, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with such activities.

However, isn’t there a lot wrong with leaning into them?

For example, if I am exercising, I may motivate myself to imagine being fitter or stronger tomorrow if I exercise well today. However, it would be far more satisfactory just to be fully engaged in exercising without thinking about it. Just be the exercising. Let go of the thinking about it. Why?

Here are two ways to think of it.

First, to think about something is to be separated. If I am imagining tomorrow’s better body while I am exercising today, then there’s a separation between mind and body. What I’m focusing on is not what I am doing.

That’s very important to notice for a simple reason: separation is always the source of dissatisfaction. When my thoughts are split from my activities, I’m dissatisfied because of that very separation.

If you disagree, try to recall any episode when you were dissatisfied when there wasn’t such a split. Then recall some episode when you were thoroughly satisfied – and notice the absence of separation.

Second, thoughts are noise, static, interference. Therefore, it’s not surprising to realize that the more I think, the more noisy my life is. Instead of being peaceful, calm, and refreshing, it becomes unpleasant and even frantic!

It does not follow that all thinking is bad. Thinking is an excellent way to solve problems.

Roshi Kapleau used to distinguish between thinking and “thoughting.” “Thoughting” was useless, repetitive, compulsive thinking—and that kind of thinking is precisely what is occurring whenever we find ourselves leaning into the future. The ideal is to use thinking whenever it is necessary and beneficial to do so, but to let go of thoughting completely and permanently.

Restoring balance is the cure for being out of balance.  Letting go of leaning by focusing fully on the present moment is the cure for leaning.

In theory, this is quite a simple solution, isn’t it?

In practice, though, it is very difficult. To accept the present moment as it is, to allow it to be, to let go of all resistance, is letting go of the egoic mind. It’s to give up having enemies. It’s to identify with Being.

Please find out for yourself. The next time you catch yourself thoughting furiously, just relax into the present moment. What more effective spiritual practice is there?

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from this, please recommend it.

Related posts:  Nonresistance, Seeking, The Future, Surrendering, and “Self Image.”

Additional resource: Eckhart Tolle’s “Through the Open Door” (2 CD set).

New Book Cover

Double click above to see the cover of my newest book.  It will be available in May 2012.  What’s it about?

A college student vanishes.  Her worried grandfather asks one of her favorite professors, Max Stephansson, to solve the mystery.  What Max discovers is tragic.  The suspense surrounding her disappearance unfolds to yield insight, but at the cost of danger and death.

[Readers of this blog may be especially interested in the valuable bonus included.  The book will be available in a Kindle edition for only $2.99 as well as an inexpensive paperback edition.]

An independent human is one of true worth.

Yasutani Roshi: “If you would be a man of true worth and not a phantom, you must be able to walk upright by yourself, dependent on nothing”[quoted from The Three Pillars of Zen, which is listed below].

Sadly, most of us are still phantoms and will die that way.

We are dependent on thought-forms; we cling to them as though they were real. Therefore, we fail to abide in unity.

Although spontaneous glimpses of it occur without practicing, becoming independent requires three things.

Kao-feng Yuan-miao (1238-1295) formulated the requisites for breaking through: great faith, great doubt, and great aspiration.  Lacking any one of these is being like a three-legged cauldron with one leg broken off.

Which is the most important of the three?

Zen Master Hakuin wrote in his spiritual autobiography Wild Ivy: “The most important of the three is the great, burning aspiration. You may possess an abundance of deep-rooted faith and a great doubt as well, but if the burning aspiration is not present . . . you will be incapable of curing the besetting illnesses of mankind and liberating sentient beings.”

Therefore: “Strive diligently, all of you! Do not allow yourselves to be content with meager gains.”

Master Hakuin and Yasutani Roshi are speaking of koan practice, which is a shortcut to enlightenment (kensho, satori, spiritual awakening, direct awareness of Being). Although there may be other ways to break through, it is impossible to be an independent human being without enlightenment.

Both men stress the importance of continual practice.

Master Hakuin: “It means immersing yourself totally in your practice at all times and in all your daily activities – walking, standing, sitting, or lying down.”

Yasutani Roshi: “Unless it accords with your everyday activities Zen is merely an embellishment. . . How can you achieve this unity? By holding to Mu [a first koan] tenaciously day and night! Do not separate yourself from it under any circumstances! Focus you mind on it constantly. . . carry on steadfastly for one, two, three, or even five years without remission, constantly vigilant.”

Nobody does this without great, burning aspiration.

Should one do it? Should one strive to be independent?

Master Hakuin: “It is the One Great Matter of human life: striving with fierce and courageous determination to bore through the barrier into kensho.”

Why?

The only alternative is remaining dependent.

Yasutani Roshi: “[M]ost of us cannot function independent of money, social standing, honor, companionship, authority, or else we feel the need to identify ourselves with an organization or an ideology. If you would be a man of true worth and not a phantom, you must be able to walk upright by yourself, dependent on nothing.”

Enlightenment is directly grasping the nature of what-is. It cannot be conceptualized, understood by mere thinking.

Why is spiritual enlightenment beneficial?

Yasutani Roshi: “When you truly understand the fundamental principle you will not be anxious about your life or your death. You will then attain a steadfast mind and be happy in your daily life. . . Miraculously, everything is radically transformed though remaining as it is.”

Each of us will either become independent of attachments or not. According to those who have broken through, there is no greater blessing or higher aim of human life.

Master Hakuin: “body and mind falling completely away . . . the great emancipation.”

There are three classes of humans: those who are independent, those who are dependent and trying to free themselves, and those who are dependent and not trying to free themselves.

If you are in the third class and would like to be in the first class, understand that being in the second class is stressful. Stress occurs when two forces are pulling against each other.

Even if you are in the second class and devoting yourself to your practice energetically and wholeheartedly, you cannot attain unthinking absorption in your practice until your defilements have burned away. As purity increases you seem unable to go back and unable to go forward.

This is why becoming independent is not for the faint of heart!

As Mumon famously put it in his commentary on Mu: “It will be just as if you swallowed a red-hot iron ball, which you cannot spit out even if you try.” [Sekida, tr.]

Would you pass the barrier of the patriarchs and realize independence?

As difficult as it is, it’s not just a matter of breaking through: it’s a matter of living the liberated life. Enlightenment is capable of indefinite expansion.

Master Hakuin: “What is to be valued above all else is the practice that comes after satori is achieved. What is that practice? It is practice that puts the Mind of Enlightenment first and foremost. . . What is the Mind of Enlighenment? It is . . . a matter of doing good—benefiting others . . . “

Being independent means living a life of genuinely serving others.

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from this post, please forward it.

References: Roshi Philip Kapleau’s  The Three Pillars of Zen and Wild Ivy:  The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin.

Living well requires letting go of your self-image.  Surprised?

How can that be?

After all, you have probably been told for years that the way to make improvements in the quality of your life is to improve the way that you think about yourself. Once you begin to accept the idea, for example, that you really are a nonsmoker, quitting smoking becomes easier.

That is the usual way that self-improvement works. I’m not denying it: it is possible to make improvements in your life by improving what you believe about yourself, which is your self-image. Once you really have improved your self-image, you will tend to behave in accordance with that improved self-image.

The self-help method of substituting better thoughts for thoughts you are attached to now certainly can work to improve your life.

However, that kind of improvement is insufficient for living well.

Haven’t you demonstrated that for yourself? Have you ever, for example, quit smoking, lost 20 pounds and kept them off for five years, bench pressed 300 pounds, increased your net worth to over one million dollars, or anything like that? What happened?

Your life improved – no doubt about that.

Then what happened? You adjusted to your improved life and that was that! Nothing about your essential dissatisfaction had changed.

Because Becoming is ceaseless flux, even if you had the power arrange everything exactly as you wanted it, that arrangement would soon fall apart. Living well isn’t anything at all like that.

Living well requires letting go of your self-image, which is detaching from egocentricity. It requires breaking bondage to thoughts (conceptualizations, judgments, propositions, statements, beliefs, evaluations, and so on).

Although letting go is simple, it is very difficult to do. As literate, civilized humans we are all attached to our thoughts about ourselves. There’s no question about that.

What sages do that the rest of us fail to do is to liberate themselves from bondage to thoughts. They transition from thought to no-thought, from judging to beyond judgment, from conceptualizing to freedom from conceptualizing, from thinking to awareness.

This doesn’t mean that they cannot think when thinking is necessary. It means that they are free from having to think incessantly, they are free to think or not to think.

Those of us who are still bound to thoughts drag those thoughts into all our experiences. This is a heavy burden. Instead of continually enjoying fresh experiences, we incessantly subsume experiences under concepts or labels, which deadens them. Life becomes wearisome, boring, tiresome, dull and flat.

Since thoughts are forms of Becoming, sages transcend Becoming to Being. It’s not as if all forms disappear; rather, it’s that all forms are experienced from the domain of Being rather than from the domain of Becoming.

That changes everything! Before liberation, forms were taken to be the whole of reality. After liberation, the whole of reality is taken to include Being as well as Becoming. Life forever becomes fresh, new, and bright.

It also changes nothing. Why?

It’s not as if, for example, all forms are replaced by other forms. For example, if you awaken spiritually your house won’t disappear! Rather, you’ll perceive your house differently because you’ll see it as an aspect of Being instead of an isolated form of Becoming.

It’s the quality of experiences that changes rather than the experiences themselves. Thoughts no longer necessarily contaminate experiences.

The same applies to your self-image, which is nothing but a set of thoughts.

You will still be able, if you want, to think the same thoughts about yourself that you had before, but you won’t mistake them for the real you. The real you is neither a thought nor a set of thoughts. It is neither a form not set of forms. The real you is Being itself.

When you realize this, you will immediately stop identifying with a certain autobiography or life story or a certain body that supposedly persists for many years. That body had a beginning and will have an end. It exists in the domain of Becoming. You will fear the end of that form only if you continue to identify solely with it.

Since all language comes from Becoming, it is impossible to use language to describe the transition from experiencing life from the perspective of the egoic mind to the perspective of the Great Mind. At best, words are nothing but signposts.

As Sengcan, who was the third Chan [Zen] ancestor, put it in the oldest Chan document: “To seek Great Mind with thinking mind / is certainly a great mistake.” In other words, it’s impossible to think yourself from Becoming to Being.

To realize Being directly, just stop the mind from discriminating. That is like waking up from a sleep and “all dreams will vanish by themselves.”

Waking up is simply dropping attachment to self-image.

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from this post, please forward it.

Additional resources: Helen Schucman’s  A Course in Miracles and Eckhart Tolle’s “Living the Liberated Life and Dealing with the Pain-Body” (3 CD set).