Dreams of Futures Past

When I was a child, I eagerly awaited a future of space stations and colonies on the moon.

Instead, I got a cell phone, and a weekly video series about tabletop gaming hosted by Star Trek: TNG's Will Wheaton.

Showing Up

I recently sent this announcement out to my students about the importance of "Showing Up." I think this is a good lesson not just for my students, but for myself, and for people in general. 

I have observed many students arriving late, leaving early, missing class, coming to class unprepared, and not participating in class discussions. This is bad.
 Participation is 10% of your grade. Will you earn participation points if you frequently arrive late, leave early, miss class, come to class unprepared, or don't participate in class discussions? No.
 But the main reason you should avoid these behaviors has nothing to do with participation points. The main reason you should avoid them is because of the kind of person you should strive to be.
 You should strive to be a person who Shows Up. A person who Shows Up is someone who fulfills his commitments and takes care of his responsibilities. This is true both in school and outside of school.
 Sure, there are extrinsic benefits to Showing Up. Professors will recommend you for scholarships, internships, awards, and other opportunities. Employers will promote you and give you greater income and authority. Family members and friends will look up to and admire you.
 But the most important benefit to Showing Up is intrinsic. You will have the authentic sense of pride and self-worth that comes from consistently honoring your commitments. You will have the satisfaction that comes from knowing you are a person who Shows Up.
 So start Showing Up, both in this class and in your other classes, and both in school and outside of school.
 That is all.

Library digital collection blues

My university's library is moving towards reducing its print collection and replacing it with a digital collection. I support this move, both because this will enable the library to use its space more efficiently (more room is needed for student study spaces, as these often fill up), and because the right sort of digital collection would be more efficient for research than a print collection. However, I'm concerned that the current incarnation of the digital collection is not as useful as a print collection, and I believe this is a common problem in libraries that are going digital right now. 

As I understand it, the library's e-books can be viewed online in .html format or downloaded in Adobe Digital Editions format. The former option seems to suffer from two drawbacks. First, it can only be accessed with an internet connection. Second, in the sample e-book I examined, Innovative Buddhist Women by Karma Lekshe Tsomo, the image quality (reflected in the clarity of the text) was noticeably poor. It's fine for reading a couple of pages, but seems like it would be a strain to try to read the entire book carefully, which is necessary for students and faculty engaged in research.

The download option has two drawbacks of its own. First, it seems that a book can only be downloaded for up to 7 days before it is scuttled by the publisher's software. 

Second, the process of downloading is not easy or simple. When I attempted to download the aforementioned e-book, I was first prompted to download Adobe Digital Editions. It is annoying to have to use a new piece of software when they are already a lot of common file formats out there (.pdf comes to mind). How many students will persist past this initial roadblock?

Third, after downloading the new software, the user is prompted to provide an Adobe Digital Editions ID. I have no idea what this ID is or how to get it. After deciding to view the e-book without the ID (which means, evidently, that I can only use the book on one computer or device and not share it between computers or devices, itself a problem), I was finally able to view the e-book. 

Fourth, while the e-book does share the same pagination as the print edition, which is necessary for research purposes, there is a serious problem with the fonts in this particular e-book. I assume these kinds of problems occur more generally, though, since the e-book is not simply a .pdf or other file type which captures an image of the print version of the book. With Innovative Buddhist Women, all of the letters in Sanskrit words which require diacritical marks are in a different, hard-to-read, and awkwardly sized font that doesn't match the rest of the text. In other words, the e-book version of this book is as difficult to read for long periods as the .html version which is accessible via the library's website, but for different reasons.

It appears I am not the only one to complain about the current state of many e-books available through university libraries. Bob Pasnau, of the University of Colorado, has made similar complaints about Oxford Scholarship Online. Pasnau also explains part of the underlying problem, which is that publishers are not putting as much thought and care into their digital editions as they are into their print editions.

I am not very confident that these problems will be solved soon. I wish they would be, because of the great potential of a properly designed digital collection.

In Memoriam

A post in honor of my dear friend, Bob Bashore (1926-2013), who passed away last week after a brief illness. 

Bob was an English professor at Bowling Green State University who specialized in 19th century American literature; he was especially interested in Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville. 

If Bob were still with us, I would have told him today about an article I recently read, about Western Buddhists' interpretation of the Pali Canon. In "The Buddha via the Bible", Thanissaro Bhikkhu argues persuasively that Western Buddhists interpret the Pali Canon through the lens of the Romantics' and Transcendentalists' reading of the Christian Bible.

Left Libertarians vs. Right Libertarians (or, the Mixed Legacy of Murray Rothbard)

There is a great series of posts at Bleeding Heart Libertarianism about the debate among right-leaning and left-leaning libertarians about the value of Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell's contributions to the movement. Jason Brennan is (rightly) critical of some of Rothbard's philosophical views, and of Rothbard's creation of an alliance between libertarians and paleo-conservatives, which resulted (inter alia) in the infamous race-baiting newsletters ghost-written by Lew Rockwell for Ron Paul.

Matt Zwolinski agrees with Brennan about the damage Rothbard did to libertarianism by forging an alliance with paleo-conservatives, but he has also written a list of seven positive contributions Rothbard made to the broader libertarian movement. I agree for the most part with Zwolinski's assessment; Rothbard's arguments for individualist anarchism are flawed, but worth taking seriously, and it was reading these arguments that helped push me toward "radical libertarianism" (for lack of a better term). Given his ill-starred later attempt to forge a strategic alliance with racists and other paleo-conservatives, I find it fascinating that Rothbard is quite clear in some of his earlier work about the potentially radical implications of old-school Lockean liberalism. Here are some quotations from Rothbard's "Confiscation and the Homestead Principle," first published in The Libertarian Forum on June 15, 1969, and now available on mises.org:

What of the myriad of corporations which are integral parts of the military-industrial complex, which not only get over half or sometimes virtually all their revenue from the government but also participate in mass murder? What are their credentials to "private" property? Surely less than zero. As eager lobbyists for these contracts and subsidies, as co-founders of the garrison state, they deserve confiscation and reversion of their property to thegenuine private sector as rapidly as possible. To say that their "private" property must be respected is to say that the property stolen by the horsethief and the murdered [sic] must be "respected". 

. . . .  

And there is another consideration. Dow Chemical, for example, has been heavily criticized for making napalm for the U.S. military machine. The percentage of its sales coming from napalm is undoubtedly small, so that on a percentage basis the company may not seem very guilty; but napalm is and can only be an instrument of mass murder, and therefore Dow Chemical is heavily up to its neck in being an accessory and hence a co-partner in the mass murder in Vietnam. No percentage of sales, however small, can absolve its guilt. 

This brings us to Karl's point about slaves. One of the tragic aspects of the emancipation of the serfs in Russia in 1861 was that while the serfs gained their personal freedom, the land—their means of production and of life, their land was retained under the ownership of their feudal masters. The land should have gone to the serfs themselves, for under the homestead principle they had tilled the land and deserved its title. Furthermore, the serfs were entitled to a host of reparations from their masters for the centuries of oppression and exploitation. The fact that the land remained in the hands of the lords paved the way inexorably for the Bolshevik Revolution, since the revolution that had freed the serfs remained unfinished. 

The same is true of the abolition of slavery in the United States. The slaves gained their freedom, it is true, but the land, the plantations that they had tilled and therefore deserved to own under the homestead principle, remained in the hands of their former masters. Furthermore, no reparations were granted the slaves for their oppression out of the hides of their masters. Hence the abolition of slavery remained unfinished, and the seeds of a new revolt have remained to intensify to the present day. Hence, the great importance of the shift in Negro demands from greater welfare handouts to "reparations", reparations for the years of slavery and exploitation and for the failure to grant the Negroes their land, the failure to heed the Radical abolitionist's call for "40 acres and a mule" to the former slaves. In many cases, moreover, the old plantations and the heirs and descendants of the former slaves can be identified, and the reparations can become highly specific indeed.

You don't hear many Lockean rights based arguments for reparations for the descendants of slaves, but arguably Rothbard is right on the money, and his points about Russian serfs and war profiteers are also worth taking seriously. Some libertarians are so identified with the right wing, because of the recent history of politics in this country, that it makes it difficult for them to see the sometimes radical implications of a traditional liberal property rights regime. This was not lost on 19th century classical liberals such as John Stuart Mill, but for historical reasons (ably summarized here by Steve Horwitz) many contemporary libertarians identify more with the right than with the left, even though libertarianism is arguably an inherently liberal and progressive ideology.

The Great Delusion

The Great Delusion is the thought that now is not the moment of awakening.

Belated Thoughts on the Anniversary of Our Nation's Birth

On this celebration of our nation's birth, it is fitting to celebrate the founders as much for what they DIDN'T do as for what they did. Consider these three great omissions by General George Washington, after the war had ended and the Articles of Confederation had been replaced with the new Constitution: he had no great ambition to be president of the United States, but evidently sought and held the office out of a sense of duty; he did not plunder the public purse while in office (as can be witnessed even today by visiting his humble estate, Mount Vernon--its very plainness serves but to embellish his honor); he did not cling to power once his term was over, but retired to private life. 

How many leaders of violent revolutions can boast of such a humble legacy? Although I am an anti-Federalist, and believe that the federal government instituted by the Constitution has ever had an unfortunate tendency toward tyranny at home and imperialism abroad, one can surely respect the Founders for the numerous crimes which they did not commit, but which were in their power.

Noble silence

The orator distinguishes himself through speech--the philosopher, through remaining silent at the right time. (After Macrobius, Saturae, 7.1.11.)

A Dream

A dream is like life. It matters, every little bit, and is fundamentally unreal.

Remedious Varo. To Be Reborn. 1960.

Reflections

When all else is taken away, what remains is the relationship you have with being itself. If this relationship is sound, though you lose everything, at bottom you will be well. If this relationship is not sound, though you gain the entire world, you will not be well. Your relationship with being unfolds each moment, in ways you may not even be aware of. The magic power of attention can transform your relationship with being. In addition to the clear, well-lit parts of the mind, this attention must be applied to the dark, the silent, the hidden parts.

Thoughts on Plato's Cave

Plato, in his Cave Allegory, taught that the sun of awakening rises high above the murky depths of ignorance. His peers, the authors of the Upanishads, held rather that the shining sun of the Self lies hidden in the innermost cavern of the heart. As far as I can tell, the Upanishads had it right. It is precisely those who insist on seeing by the clear light of day who end up knowing least. Coming to know requires an ever deeper exploration of the self's, of the world's, many shadow-strewn ways.

The Greatest Loves

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Beata Beatrix. 1864-1870. 

The ancients knew that the greatest loves are unrequited; or, if requited, unconsummated; or, if consummated, profoundly unhappy. Dante and Beatrice; Romeo and Juliette; Lancelot and Guinevere; et multa alia. It seems to be a decree of Fate that the greatest loves end in great disappointment or utter wretchedness.

Facebook is scary

Yesterday I played a facebook game called "D&D: Heroes of Neverwinter". I had never played a facebook game before, but I've played D&D and other role-playing games off and on since I was a lad. The game was disturbing. In order to do well, a player must recruit other people from facebook to play it. Players are also rewarded in the game for spending more time playing it, and for playing on consecutive days. The game is optimally designed to spread through social networks and to take up more and more of a person's life.

 Part of the appeal of games like D&D is that they allow people to create their own stories. Role-playing games offer a DIY alternative to the stories and entertainment created by the commercial media. But "D&D: Heroes of Neverwinter" is a preeminently commercial game. Its sole purpose seems to be to spread through facebook to as many users as possible and to get people to spend as much time on facebook as possible (presumably for the sake of generating ad revenue). In other words, welcome to the machine.

 After thinking about this game and why it bothered me, I started thinking about facebook in general. It's a great tool which has enabled people to connect, to reconnect, and to stay connected with people they care about. But the fact that it is a commercial enterprise should give us pause. The owners of facebook want us to spend more and more of our lives using their product. They want their product to become indispensable to our work, play, and intimate relationships. The life experience and connections between people have become commodities. There is a risk that we will live our lives for the benefit of and at the pleasure of a commercial enterprise.

 I say all this as a fan of the free market who believes that competition is the best way of checking the market power of firms. The point is not that free market capitalism is bad because it has given birth to monsters such as facebook. The point is that we as consumers should be as intelligent and careful as possible about how we consume commercial entertainment and social media. Social media like facebook and Google+ are network goods, which means that the greater the number of people who use them, the more valuable they are. (If only a few people used facebook, it would be harder to find people you know and the product would be less valuable. The more people who use facebook, the easier it is to find people you know and to meet new people.)

This can make it hard for alternative social media to compete. But it is not impossible to unseat an established network good. For example, consider Microsoft's Windows operating system, a network good which now has several viable competitors. It's hard to say how things will play out, but the worst case scenario is that people become extremely dependent on facebook or other commercial social media in order to have satisfying work, play, and relationships. A better alternative would be a crowd-sourced, non-commercial social media platform.

Sophora for Health

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been sick with chronic fatigue syndrome since 2006. I wasn't diagnosed correctly until last year, and there aren't a lot of options for treatment. In my previous post on CFS, I mentioned some of the research I had found, including John Chia's theory that multiple pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, and molds, are behind CFS cases. Chia treats CFS cases according to which pathogen he finds in the patient (using blood tests or, for some of his enterovirus cases, biopsies of stomach tissue, since the infection can be hard to spot in the blood). The preferred treatments are antibiotics and antiviral drugs, but in the case of enteroviruses, there aren't yet any effective antiviral drugs which can be prescribed. Chia first tried using interferon to treat his enterovirus cases, with some success, but the costs and side effects of the drug proved prohibitive. Ideally, antiviral drugs effective against enteroviruses will soon be developed (in a phone consultation, Chia told me that a drug currently being developed to treat polio may also be effective against the kinds of enteroviruses he has found in some of his CFS patients). Until then, Chia has been prescribing an over-the-counter herbal supplement called sophora to his patients with enteroviral infections. Sophora is used in China to treat cancer and hepatitis. The root of the sophora plant contains oxymatrine, which appears to modulate the activity of Th1 and Th2 cells (which are important components of the immune system). Chia claims that 52% of his patients treated with sophora have seen an improvement in symptoms. In some cases, this has included a complete remission of symptoms, while in other cases, the imrprovements have been more modest.

I have been taking the Equilibrant brand of sophora since September of last year. (Equilibrant is a product developed by Chia in order to create a pharmaceutical-grade version of sophora, since, as with many herbal supplements, the actual dosage of oxymatrine in other sophora supplements can vary from tablet to tablet.) I decided to blog about this in case any of you have chronic fatigue syndrome, or know someone with chronic fatigue syndrome, since it can be very difficult to obtain effective treatment. In my case, I am still suffering from severe fatigue, but after taking Equilibrant for the last 8 months, several of my other symtpoms have improved dramatically: the myalgia in my muscles has decreased a lot, the digestive problems are much less severe, the circulation problems are much improved, and I get much less frequent flus and colds (previously, I would get sick with opportunistic infections literally every week or so). It seems to take a long time for the sophora to do its work, probably because it doesn't attack the virus directly, but instead merely improves the activity of the immune system; given a large enough viral load, it can take months to notice substantial improvements in symtpoms. Chia told me as much in a phone consultation, but I would have expected either that my CFS symptoms would have stopped improving by now, or that the sophora would have not had any positive effect. Instead, my symptoms still seem to be gradually improving, and this 8 months after the start of treatment.

I didn't want to blog about sophora until I knew for sure whether it was working. Even though I'm not fully recovered, the improvement has been remarkable, and I would recommend the use of sophora to others suffering from CFS, provided that they have reason to believe they are infected with an enterovirus or other pathogen that can't yet be treated through conventional means.

The Theory and Practice of Religion

In his post from April 7th, John Gfoeller said:

Intellection can only take a person so far. Then one must make a choice: to choose a religion –which is a package deal– or not; and then to put that decision into practice. If religion is like a vehicle, then only so much can be learned from studying it. After a certain point, a person should pick a vehicle and make the journey.

John made a similar point in his post from April 12th:

Religion isn’t a set of points of points of propositional logic. Religion is a way of life, a set of beliefs and tools for addressing the ultimate issues of our shared experience of life.

And the issue came up again in his post from April 14th:

Religion is a way of life. It is a set of beliefs, practices, community, and spirituality that expresses and reinforces a shared encounter of life and life’s ultimate issues. It is not mostly about data and thinking. It is about how to live.

It seems that you are analyzing religion solely or mostly in terms of philosophy. I think that approach can only yield partial results because philosophy is only part of religion.

Yet, religion is its own thing. It is not a branch of philslophy (although sometimes it can be philosophy in action or as applied to life). Religion — like art, sport, love, etc. — is its own sui generis phenomenon with its own purpose and process. Philosophy can be part of religion, but that is not necessary for religion to function. Hence, analyzing religion in terms of philosophy alone is like trying analyze art or sport or love in terms of philosophy alone. The result will only be partially accurate.

Consider, for example, that most members of religion (now and in the past) have not known much (or any) of the philosophical side of their religions. Yet, they practiced those religions.

I agree that religion is a way of life and not just a belief system. Since in my previous posts I was focusing on the doctrinal side of Buddhism, it probably seemed that I was reducing the religion to its set of beliefs. But I did not intend to be suggesting that.

While I agree that a religion is more than just a set of beliefs, I do think that beliefs are an essential part of a religion. For example, Christians are supposed to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and I don't think this is an optional or insignificant part of being a Christian, even though it is not the whole shebang. Similarly, Buddhism is in part a set of beliefs about karma, rebirth, and the end of suffering, even though it is also a code of conduct and a way of life.

Because beliefs are part of the essence of religion, it seems irresponsible to adopt a religion if one doesn't share its beliefs, or at least its core beliefs. How one defines the core is a tricky question, but not an impossible one to anwser; a Christian who denied that the genealogies of Jesus given in the Gospels are historically accurate probably still counts as a Christian, but one who denies that Jesus is the Messiah almost certainly does not, for example. Similarly, a person who denies that the Buddha could fly through the air or walk on water (as described in the sutras of the Pali Canon) may still count as a Buddhist, but if he denies that the Buddha was enlightened, then he almost certainly does not.

Having said that, John is right to focus on the practical side of religion, for if doctrines are the bones and sinews of a religion, then practice is its flesh--that from which a person derives spiritual sustenance, if you will. Yet for all that, the flesh and the bones are something of a package deal. And if you can't stomach the bones, then you should stay away from the religion.

Groups and Independence of Judgment

I am separating my responses to a previous post by John Gfoeller, in order to keep the length of the posts manageable. (My previous responses to his first post are here and here; I have also responded once to his second post, here; my original post which started the dialogue is here.)

In his post, John makes a third point in response to my earlier post on spiritual traditions:

You are concerned about preserving your objectivity and your autonomy as an individual within a community.

My friend, mankind is a social species. We live our lives in terms of each other, and we are defined in large part by our relationships. Objectivity (like personal autonomy) is largely an illusion.

Again I speak as an outsider; I am not a Buddhist. But, I imagine that if you join the Buddhist religion, it will in fact shape your views. And that is not bad; that is a product of your choice to practice a religion; indeed, that is the purpose of adopting a religion. You will still be highly intelligent; you will still be a thinker and a philosopher and a scholar and a PhD., and an instructor at a university. You would lose your perspective as a secular outsider looking at religion from afar. Instead, you would be religious. Hence, what you would lose from one perspective, you would gain in experience from the other perspective.
You will not become a robot or an automaton, but you will be what you choose to affiliate yourself with and practice.

It's true that mankind is a social species, and that it is pretty difficult, if not impossible, for a person to flourish in isolation from other people. It does not follow, though, that a person should join a spiritual tradition, if this requires sacrificing independence of judgment.

It should be noted that not all groups require members to sacrifice their independence of judgment, even if the group must make collective decisions which conflict with the judgments of some of its members (as long as the individual is permitted to remain with the group with his dissenting opinion). The benefits of interaction with others, and with membership in groups to which one is committed (and, perhaps, for which one is willing to sacrifice one's own individual well-being), are indeed important, but this does not entail that one should join groups which require one to sacrifice one's freedom of thought or independence of judgment. Note that it may well be in the interest of the group for its members to retain independence of judgment, and also note that it may be unpleasant, indeed a major burden, for an individual to accept independence of judgment, for this requires great responsibility on his part.

The issue of objectivity is separate from the issue of group membership. I don't think that objectivity is an illusion, at least not in an unqualified way. Indeed, if there is no such thing as objectivity in any sense, then it is difficult to have meaningful discussions with others. Rational discourse seems to presuppose an objective basis for resolving disagreements and harmonizing judgments.

Note that independence of judgment does not imply that a person is not shaped by the views of others. Far from it. Independence of judgment simply implies that a person believes in accordance with the best evidence and arguments available to him (and this can include deferring to expert opinion when the person has good reason to believe that someone else is a qualified expert in a particular field). Much of the information an individual uses to form his judgment will indeed come from other people. And the principle of independence of judgment does not presuppose that individuals are better at forming beliefs than groups. Not at all. The principle merely presupposes that groups of people whose members work together to form beliefs but who retain independence of judgment will generate more reliable beliefs on average than groups of people whose members work together to form beliefs without independence of judgment. Groups whose members retain independence of judgment benefit from the multiple sources of information and analysis, and in fact are able to make use of more information than groups with more rigid belief-formation structures.

An individual forms the most accurate beliefs not by not being influenced by others, but by being influenced by others through the mediation of his own critical judgment. Of course, individuals using their own judgment will make mistakes all the time, but the polycentric approach to belief formation is still better than the imposition of beliefs in a top-down manner by appeals to tradition, authority, or solidarity.

It's easy for us to get hung up on dichotomies like individual vs. group or autonomy vs. solidarity, when a more nuanced analysis often reveals that these pairs are not true contradictories. I think that the intellectual autonomy of an individual is compatible with many forms of solidarity, for example, and that solidarity actually works best in the contect of intellectual autonomy. Similarly, I think that individuals flourish when they are part of flourishing groups, and that groups flourish when they give sufficient liberty to their individual members. John is right to attack the view that individuals need to steer clear of groups of any kind, but that's not the view that I am defending. Individuals need groups as sources of information and to challege and expand their thinking, but groups need to give their members sufficient indepencence of judgment for individuals to benefit maximally from membership in the group, and for the group as such to benefit maximally from its members.

Buddhist Inquiry

In a post on his blog, my friend John gave a response to my blog post on spiritual traditions. John has made a total of three replies to my series of posts on his blog; here, I am responding to another he point he made in his first post (as you can see, I am pretty far behind).

In the post on spiritual traditions, I criticized the methodology used by Buddhists (and others) for generating and testing beliefs. John's response is that the Buddhist method is actually the same (or nearly the same) as that of natural science, namely rational inquiry and controlled experimentation:

Buddhism is primarily a mystical religion with a strong intellectual support. Prince Siddhartha Gautama reported to have achieved an ineffable state of consciousness that we term “enlightenment.” He further reported that this state of consciousness eliminates suffering and produces a host of other benefits. And, he taught a set of beliefs and practices (the Dharma) whereby others can achieve this same state of consciousness also. Hence, there is in Buddhism an emphasis on monasticism as the most complete means for achieving this state of consciousness. Hence too, there is an emphasis on independent inquiry to prove or disprove those statements. In that regard, Buddhism can be regarded as a 2,500 year long investigation –by many people from different times, places and cultures — to prove or disprove Siddharth Gautama’s claims and methodology. The results have been quite a lot of adaptation for local conditions and for different personality traits, but a consistency nevertheless: his claims and his methodology work for those who choose to employ them.

So, on the one hand, Buddhism certainly has its own methodology. On the other hand, that methodology is rational inquiry and controlled experimentation to prove or disprove Siddhartha Gautoma’s claims.

And, there is no obligation to make this inquiry into the Buddha’s claims — especially if one does not find those claims to be particularly credible. For example, I remember reading one such account. The Buddha had just become enlightened, and he was on his was to the city of Benares to tell his friends of this when he came upon a forest monk. They said hello to each other, and then (as was the custom among monks) the forest monk made a polite inquiry into which school of thought the Buddha practiced. The Buddha replied with enthusiasm (perhaps too much enthusiasm?), “I’ve just become enlightened !” The forest monk replied, “Hmm. Maybe.” And then he left. :-) .

I object strongly to the claim that the method used by Buddhists to generate and test beliefs is rational inquiry and controlled experimentation. This claim is often made by those who attempt to portray Buddhism as a rational religion or as otherwise compatible with the worldview of scientific naturalism. In part, these rationalist defenses of Buddhism have their origin in Sri Lankan Buddhist apologetics from the late 19th century, when Sri Lankans were attempting to counter assertions by Christian missionaries that Buddhism, unlike Christianity, was incompatible with modern science (an odd argument for the missionaries to be making, to be sure). (David McMahan's The Making of Buddhist Modernism is an excellent history of this trend within Buddhist thought and apologetics.)

Now, it's true that, from the Buddhist point of view, knowledge is only salvific if one sees the truth of it oneself. It's not enough to simply know the four noble truths as abstract propositions, for example; one is supposed to be able to see these truths directly, by gaining penetrating insight into the nature of samsara and nirvana. This is at least part of the reason why Buddhists often talk about the importance of seeing the truth of things for oneself. It's also true that the Buddha was surprisingly tolerant of questioning or dissent among his followers, at least in comparison to some other religious figures. While, on the one hand, he explicitly condemns (with little argument, and much name-calling) the so-called 62 wrong views, on the other hand, he was open-hearted enough to ask on his deathbed if any of his followers had any doubts (DN 16), or wished to ask any questions relating to the dharma he had taught.

But neither of these facts implies that Buddhism employs a methodology based on reason and controlled experimentation. One is only supposed to put the four noble truths and other parts of the dharma to the test in that one is supposed to see the truth of them in one's own experience. A Buddhist cannot reject any part of the dharma (or at least, the core of the dharma, such as the four noble truths, karma, rebirth, no-self, and so on) and remain a Buddhist. That is why the Buddha spent so much of his time disputing with brahmins and others who disagreed with his views, such as in his dialogue with Khemaka, who denied the doctrine of no-self. Like members of other religions, Buddhists seem to presume that the Buddha is infallible, at least with respect to beliefs and assertions relevant to the religion itself. Buddhists will thus, in practice, and despite their protestations to the contrary, only use reason and experience to try to justify what the Buddha taught, and to explain away apparent objections or inconsistencies. There is no internal mechanism within Buddhism for carefully testing and revising theories based on new evidence or new analyses of old evidence, unlike in the empirical sciences. If one uses reason or experience to reject a doctrine taught by the Buddha, then one is no longer a Buddhist. Of course, individual Buddhists have the power to question the beliefs of their religion, just like memebrs of any other religion, and the culture of Buddhism may be somewhat more tolerant of this than the culture of other religions (though I dispute that this is the case in most, perhaps all, traditional Buddhist sects), but, at the end of the day, one's beliefs have to remain consistent with those of the Buddha if one wishes to remain a Buddhist. This is in contrast with the empirical sciences, in which one can question the beliefs of other scientists, even and especially the founders of one's discipline, and still count as a scientist. I therefore conclude that they have different methodologies for testing beliefs.

Not only are the core beliefs of Buddhism not revisable (from the Buddhist point of view), it seems inaccurate to describe Buddhists as using a method of "controlled experimentation". John may be thinking here of the self-discovery and inquiry that occurs during and as a result of Buddhist meditation practice. I would disagree that this counts as controlled experimentation, however. Whatever one learns as a result of meditation, it's really no better than anecdotal evidence, unless one is scientifically studying meditators. Now, anecdotal evidence can be very useful--after all, we use it every day, and in fact life would probably be impossible without it. But controlled experimentation, at least as it is understood by empirical scientists, is a far cry from any of the "experiments" conducted by Buddhists during meditation or dialogue. Scientific experiments are quantified, and controls are in place so that only one variable is manipulated at a time. This is the reverse of the case with the information one learns from meditation. Now, this is not to knock meditation--I think it is potentially very beneficial, but a method of controlled experimentation it is not, nor even of rational inquiry.

So far I have focused on how Buddhists don't do a good job subjecting their views to impartial testing procedures. Buddhists also do not adopt a rational means of generating the core beliefs of their tradition. Like other religions, the core beliefs of Buddhism are generated based on the fact that they're stated in the scriptures by the founder or his immediate disciplies, and are therefore regarded as true (and non-provisionally true at that). Now, Buddhists may offer further evidence and search for arguments in support of these beliefs after the fact, in order to reduce the doubts of the faithful or to convince unbelievers of the error of their ways, but this is not the same as generating beliefs through sustained, impartial empirical inquiry, nor subjecting theories generated in this way to further tests using truly controlled experiments. It's something of an insult to scientists to suggest that they are using the same method used by Buddhists who are engaged in apologetics or even Buddhists who are earnestly attempting to discover and experiences the (presumed) truths of their religion for themselves.

I could go on, and indeed I may in a later post, but for now I would simply like to recommend Donald Lopez's book on a related topic, entitled Buddhism and Science. I have only started to read the book, but Lopez provides a compelling account about the perceived relationship between Buddhism and modern science, which gives insight into the reason why many westerners and Asian Buddhists have sought to portray Buddhism as compatible with science, when in many ways it is not.

Disputers of the Dharma

John Gfoeller has posted a response to my post about the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth. The substance of our debate is whether the Buddhist view is compatible with scientific naturalism; I argue that it is not.

John makes a number of points, and I don't know if I will have time or space to reply to them all, at least for now. (I still have yet to reply to all of the points he made on his first post, and here I am commenting on his second!)

The first point John makes is that there is diversity in Buddhists' interpretation of the doctrine of rebirth. He concludes that the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth can be interpreted in a way that is consistent with the worldview of scientific naturalism. I accept his premise, but deny his conclusion.

In other words, all Buddhists are required to accept the teaching of rebirth, but Buddhists seem to interpret that idea in different ways. Therevadans and Secularists seem to have the most strict view of no-self (anatman). Some Mahayanists and the Tibetans have the least emphasis on anatman — to the point where I wonder aloud if they really believe in a permanent self in everything but name. And there are views between those two poles.

It is true that Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists vary in their interpretation of both the no-self and rebirth doctrines. I should first note that there are secular Buddhists rooted in both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, so I don't think it is correct to imply that they are necessarily closer to the Theravada view on these issues.

In terms of the no-self doctrine, many Mahayana Buddhists accept the notion of Tathagatagarbha or Buddha Nature, which, depending on the interpretation, is either simply the potential all beings have to become enlightened, or a sort of substantial Buddha principle present in all beings. The latter interpretation of Tathagatagarbha does seem in tension with the no-self doctrine (anatman), because it makes the Buddha Nature into a kind of cosmic self similar to the Hindu notion of Atman. But the interpretation of Tathagatagarbha is a separate issue from the interpretation of the doctrine of rebirth. Rebirth neither entails nor is entailed by Tathagatagarbha.

In terms of rebirth, both Mahayana Buddhists and Theravada Buddhists agree that there are karmic links between the ephemeral states that make up a "person" across different lifetimes. I put the term 'person' into scare quotes here because, according to Buddhists, the person can only be said to exist when using a conventional level of discourse, in which the continuity of the person is understood not in terms of a single persistent substance, but rather as a matter of the degree of relatedness of different physical and psychological states; at the ultimate level of discourse, persons do not exist, only metaphysical atoms (from the Theravada point of view, as described in the Theravada Abhidhamma) or the indivisible flow of emptiness or shunyata (from the Mahayana point of view, as described for example in Nagarjuna's The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way).

The Mahayana interpretation of rebirth (in fact, there are several) is not influenced solely or even primarily by the Tathagatagarbha doctrine. A bigger influence is the Mahayana doctrine of seed or store consciousness (which is supposed to be what provides the metaphysical connection between a karmic act and its fruit). But the key issue with respect to the doctrine of rebirth is whether there is significant causal connectedness between the conscious states of organisms across different lifetimes, and on this view Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists are in complete agreement. Secular Buddhists from both traditions may attempt to deny this interpretation of rebirth, but in doing so they are making a radical departure from tradition, and in effect denying rebirth altogether.

Put more formally, then: How to interpret the mechanism by which the causality of contingent consciousness operates in Buddhist theory? On the one hand, all Buddhists believe that consciousness is caused by other moments of consciousness; in other words, consciousness is the anatman because it is contingent upon a complex process of dependent origination. On the other hand, all Buddhists believe that the mechanism for that process is rebirth through (at least) five different states of reality / consciousness: gods, man, animals, hungry ghosts, demons. How to interpret all that? How to reconcile the two a priori Buddhist beliefs of no-self and rebirth?

I attempted to explain in my previous post how Buddhists reconcile no-self and rebirth. The key is to realize that no-self is just as difficult to reconcile with the continuity of a person within a single lifetime as it is to reconcile with the continuity of a person between lifetimes. In both cases, the metaphysical glue which holds the transient physical and psychological states together into a conventional person is: karmic causation. This is true both from the Mahayana and the Theravada points of view. What makes the future person the same as the past person (from a conventional point of view) is that the karma of the particular past states in question leads to fruit which is experienced in and through the particular future states in question.

Again: The answer seems to be in different emphases in understanding rebirth itself. Theravadans and Secularists seem to deemphasize rebirth into other forms of consciousness. Theravadans (at least, in the monasteries) acknowledge rebirth in other realms of existence, but they instead emphasizes enlightenment in this lifetime. Secularists either reject the other realms or interpret them as metaphors for psychological states of awareness in this life; and either way they emphasize Dhamma as a philosophy and enlightenment as a possibility — in this life. Some Mahayanists and the Tibetans seem to greatly emphasize rebirth in other states of reality / consciousness. I mention again the Pure Land sect (and the Tibetans) as virtually believing in a permanent self (that reincarnates) in everything but name. And, again, there are points of emphasis in between these two poles.

It's true that secular Buddhists are more likely to radically reinterpret the doctrine of rebirth, precisely because it is inconsistent with the modern scientific worldview, but a reinterpretation of rebirth which denies karmic causation across lifetimes amounts to a denial of the doctrine, not merely an alternative interpretation of it.

I should note that only some Theravada Buddhists emphasize enlightenment in this lifetime; traditionally, very few did, and many Theravada Buddhists still deny that enlightenment is even possible in the current state of the world. The Theravada interest in intensive meditation practice, which may have been the source of John's view about their focus on enlightenment in this life, has only become strong again since the late 19th century (the website Access to Insight has a lot of useful information on the recent history of Theravada Buddhism; another useful work is Richard Gombrich's classic Precept and Practice, which is about the history of Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka). Theravada Buddhists, even the ones who practice meditation intensively, perhaps with the intention of achieving enlightenment in this lifetime (which is not always the case among ardent meditators, whether Theravada or Mahayana), believe in rebirth just as much as do Mahayana Buddhists. John seems to assume that the more one believes in rebirth, the more one must believe in a soul or self which is reborn, but as I have tried to indicate, on the Buddhist view this is just not the case. The Pali Canon is adamant both in its denial of all forms of self or soul theory, and in its denial of annihilationism, which is the view that the person ends absolutely at death. The mechanism for the continuity between lives is karma, not a soul, and this is so both from the Theravada and from the Mahayana point of view.

Therefore, while all Buddhists must accept the idea of rebirth, there is substantial variety in Buddhism for interpreting that idea.

This is true, but it does not prove that the doctrine of rebirth on any of its interpretations is consistent with the worldview of scientific naturalism, which is what John was seeking to establish. And I have tried to show that the notion of karmic causation across lifetimes, which is inconsistent with scientific naturalism, is what all of the interpretations of the doctrine of rebirth have in common.

America's Zen Masters

There have been numerous moral failures among those instrumental in bringing Zen Buddhism to the United States and among those placed in positions of leadership. Hakuun Yasutani was a racist and an outspoken supporter of Japanese imperialism. Taizan Maezumi was an alcoholic who engaged in adulterous affairs with his female students; he died of drowning in a bath after a drinking binge. Richard Baker, the dharma heir of Shunryu Suzuki, lived an extravagant lifestyle and engaged in numerous affairs with his students while abbot of the San Franciso Zen Center. More recently, Eido Shimano resigned as head of the Zen Studies Society as a result of an adulterous affair, and Dennis Genpo Merzel was disrobed and resigned from White Plum Asanga as a result of sexual misconduct.

While these moral failings are deeply disturbing, not all of America's Zen masters have fallen so low. Indeed, several American Zen masters are among the most important and unique voices in the recent history of Zen. I have already blogged about Charlotte Joko Beck, who was a student of Taizan Maezumi. Joko's focus on applying the insights of Zen meditation to everyday work and relationships has, to my mind at least, revolutionized the practice of Zen. Indeed, in recent decades Joko has abandoned much of the traditional rituals and other formal aspects associated with Zen, in a sense having transcended the tradition altogether.

Another American Zen master is Toni Packer (pictured above), a former student of Phillip Kapleau. Born in Switzerland, she now teaches at Springwater, a meditation and retreat center in upstate New York. Like Joko, Packer has moved beyond the Zen tradition in which she was trained, and instead fosters a less formal and more open approach to meditation practice (at least in part due to the influence of Jiddu Krishnamurti). Packer's talks are a model of profound clarity and simplicity.

American masters such as Joko and Toni Packer have succeeded in liberating Zen from much of its cultural baggage, focusing instead on the bare, unadorned practice of meditation, the lack of separation between meditation and everyday life, and the attainment of liberating insight outstide of pre-conceived doctrines. They have at once broadened Zen and widdled it down to its essential core. It is no longer Zen that they practice and teach, it is something much more immediate, much less a matter of conceptual and cultural artifice. Theirs is a truly human spirituality, and one that is flexible and can grow, with the changing knowledge base of civilizations, and with the unique insights of individual practitioners.

Do we really know what enlightenment is, or if it is? And if the Buddha found enlightenment outside of Buddhism, why can't someone else? Before there was the Buddha or Confucius or Lao Tzu, the Way was there already, waiting to be discovered. And so it remains.

Born Again

John Gfoeller recently posted a detailed response to my previous post on The Problem of Traditions . I won't respond to all of the points he raised in this post, but I would like to comment on his remarks about the relationship between Buddhism and the doctrine of reincarnation:

First, to the best of my knowledge, Buddhism does not believe in reincarnation. Buddhism believes in “anatman” — no (permanent) soul. Hence, Buddhism doesn’t believe in reincarnation because it doesn’t believe in a permanent soul that could reincarnate.

Rather, Buddhism believes in rebirth — which is a much more flexible concept.

At its most minimal interpretation, rebirth seems to mean a transference of consequences from one life to others’ lives. In other words, Buddhism teaches that a person is simply a temporary aggregate of various elements, and person simply dies when those elements come apart. No soul survives. Yet, the consequences of the person’s life continue in the lives of others. And, those consequences (directly or indirectly) can result in another person being born. And that is rebirth. This seems to be the interpretation preferred by Theravada Buddhism and by secular Buddhism.

It's true that, in English at least, the term 'reincarnation' is sometimes used to refer specifically to the view that there is a permanent soul or self which embodies different beings, and the term 'rebirth' is sometimes used to refer specifically to the Buddhist view that there is continuity between lives but no permanent soul or self. I am of course familiar with these uses of the terms 'rebirth' and 'reincarnation' in the English literature on Buddhism, but I didn't feel the need to introduce them in my original post, because the distinction between reincarnation and rebirth is not actually essential to the point I was making, and since in my view it's a somewhat artifical way of marking the distinction (though admittedly useful).

The Buddhist doctrine of continuity between lives is different from the view that a permanent soul incarnates in different bodies, but I don't think it is more flexible. I reject both views, because there is no good reason to believe that the thoughts, words, and actions of one life are uniquely and closely causally connected to the thoughts, words, actions, and experiences of other lives, past or present. Both views conflict with the view of living organisms we have from the natural sciences.

The Buddhist view of rebirth is puzzling to many, because if there is no permanent soul to connect different lives, then how is rebirth even possible? From the Buddhist point of view, the connection between lives is basically the same as the connection within a life. If there is no permanent soul, what connects the 'me' of yesterday with the 'me' of today? The answer is the causal connections between physical and psychological states. If I strike a person in anger today, then this has an effect on my future psychological states; and my current states and actions, while they affect a great many other beings, have a bigger effect on, that is to say they are more closely causally connected to, the future 'me' than they are to any other being. It is the nature and degree of the causal connections that forms the basis of a person's conventional identity over time, even though there is no single substance or set of substances which persist between any two moments (let alone over a lifetime, or between lifetimes). So, if the Buddhist can solve the problem of the identity of a conventional 'person' over a lifetime, he can solve the problem of the identitiy of a reborn or reincarnated 'person' over several lifetimes.

Note that the kind of causal connectedness required for continuity of a person is more than just the loose causal connection between persons that John mentioned in his post. Rebirth connects the lives of different organisms as closely, as least with respect to the law of karma, as different states of a single person's life are connected. The fact that I have influenced other people, including future people, and the fact that I may cause people to be born, is not enough to establish the truth of the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth, on howsoever minimal an interpretation. Rebirth entails a unique and close causal connection between the karmic states of different living creatures. Theravada Buddhists are as clear on this point as Mahayana Buddhists. And denying rebirth in this robust form is one of the sixty-two wrong views condemned by the Buddha in the Pali Canon. Now, a secular Buddhist could offer a looser view of causal connectedness between lives of the sort John suggests, but we should be clear that this amounts to a radical reinterpretation of the Buddhist tradition.