I just got finished watching the The Root of All Evil?, a television documentary, written and presented by Richard Dawkins, in which he argues that the world would be better off without religion.

My two cents. I think Dawkins is clever and readable/watchable to an extent. I got into reading him and Dennett for awhile years ago, and I still think Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained” is a great Western introduction to Buddhism (though I doubt he would ever agree with that). The whole Dawkins-Dennett camp appear to be in what I would call “vertical kindergarten”. But I appreciate that they are addressing some of the more obvious nonsense being passed off as holy/spiritual/religious and that most philosophers just leave alone out of some outworn respect or political correctness. I think it’s safe to say that most all of us bums have “been there done that” and have moved on to deeper inquiry, but the sad fact is that the majority of world religion, shit - even world mysticism, is still at what Ken Wilber would call the mythic membership level - authoritarian, paternalistic, hierarchical, conformist, emotional without critical thinking, ethnocentric, nationalistic, militaristic, etc. ad nauseum.

Self / Other - they are not separate. What I pursue is in a relationship with what is pursued, the environment it is pursued within, the conditions which gave rise to the pursuing. In fact, all of these parts are already whole. Selfishness and altruism are ideologies. What is true?

I had to think about this for awhile. I think I have a taboo against the destruction of sacred items. I am very respectful with my thangka, my meditation cushions and blankets, my mala beads, etc. And I get annoyed when people treat belongings I have reserved for meditation carelessly — or even just casually, like to just take my zafu and sit on it to watch TV. Wierd? And even though I don’t consider myself Christian, it would also “feel taboo” for me to, ie: take a crucifix and smash it or something like that.

Then again, I just had a memory - the other day I was walking to work and thought about how fucked up it is that ancient Buddhist shrines have been destroyed lately in the Middle East. I found myself cringing at the thought of a beautiful old Buddha statue being smashed. But — then I noticed the space between the pieces of stone, breaking apart — and I laughed.

I think my taboos tend to disappear under scrutiny.

What is the difference between trance and meditation? This is a distinction my Taoist teacher Liu Ming really emphasized. I believe he felt it was a very important distinction in historical Taoism. He considered meditations that cultivate states such as samadhi, trance inducing meditations. They serve a purpose, but my impression was that Ming felt they had more shamanic value, for navigating bardos, healing, divinations, etc. Whereas the intention of zuowang is to just be with the starkness of ordinary reality. As it is. And “as it is” is what the ego, or whatever you would call it, the grasping for separateness, would do anything to avoid. Because reality is a disaster for the idea of separateness. This is why eyes are kept open (very difficult for me) and there is no object of meditation. Choiceless awareness. Without slipping out into trance, which can also be supremely challenging for me. From this perspective, trances can be one of the most highly sophisticated forms of reality avoidance.

Then of course there is the face that “movement always implies stillness, and that stillness always implies movement.” In an “absolute” sense, Stillness isn’t a posture we can assume. It just is (– or maybe more accurately, it is not — since it is no-thing, but anyway) … A big part of the struggle of our practice is trying to align ourselves with this ineffable Stillness. The paradox being the fact that trying is also a form of movement. In this way it seems naively literal to assume that trying force the body to be still will somehow align us with this profound mystery of capital S - Stillness. But then I must admit — as naive as this does seem, there does appear to be a relationship between engaging in regular stillness meditation and the arising of a deepening resonance with Stillness. Wether this apparent arising of “more stillness” is itself another illusion and/or whether this relationship of stillness meditation to Stillness is causal … well these are koans. It’s too much to grasp. Which is good. My mind is stopped in it’s tracks. Humbled. Ultimately this is where I agree with the Christians when they say it is through an utterly mysterious grace that God descends. Slashing through the ego’s plots to storm the Tao through this or that method — generating a kind of dumbfounded humility in her wake. Enlightenment is a giant failure.

Trunk from The Tao Bums shared an interesting practice recently on “reclaiming visual qi”. Here is a little blurb.

We humans have a lot of yi (attention, awareness, focus) naturally invested in vision; it’s our predominant perceptual avenue. Modern life, physically sedentary and mentally over-active, exacerbates this predominance. What often results is that there’s too much yi habitually located in the eyes and in front of the eyes (outside the body), as well as excessive tension in the ocular muscles and along the optic nerve pathway. There’s excessive yi in front, yet a deficit of yi in the back regions of the brain, which throws brain alchemy off. The yi, and consequently the chi, gets stuck in the front exterior.

Read the full article at Brain Massage Meditation.

Interesting synchronicity too because I’ve recently begun working through the eyeQ program which is mostly geared toward increased reading speed, but also claims to improve visual acuity in general. As I wrote in my reply in the thread on The Tao Bums, I tend to use my vision in a very grasping way.

Try the meditation. Let me know how it goes.