Last week was another interesting one in my life (for me at least).
HEALTH/STRESS: It began Sunday with wrenching stomach pains and other things a bit on the gross side in Gozo, where I was vacationing. It could have been 'too much sun' from our day out Saturday, or food poisoning as my GP (doctor for y'all in the US) here diagnosed on Thursday. It could also have been just another turn in that Adrenal Fatigue thing I may have. With this I seem to have nearly all of the listed symptoms.
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PHD UPDATE: Once back in London I had a meeting with my advisors- a brainstorming session that would hopefully set me on track for the summer to work on my own from the states. It was fantastic. I came away wishing I could somehow smuggle Professors Keown and Caygill in my back pocket back to the states (just pop them out once a week for more brainstorming and pep-talks) :) I'll have to post more on the details, but we came away with a further plan/outline for my thesis, something like:
Methodology
Literature Review
Ethics as a Path
Buddhism (from greed, anger, delusion toward freedom from these)
Kant (from drives, desires and inclinations toward freedom/autonomy)
Case studies: perhaps death and dying, perhaps sex with animals (ha! apparently a bit of an issue for both early Buddhists and Kant - should make for juicy discussion)
I can't wait to be rested enough and have the time to really dig in!
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TRAVELS: Now I'm very happily in Bristol, where I did my Buddhist Studies MA. I'm staying with my good friend SJ, who was a housemate of mine back then. I've had the pleasure to meet up with old coursemate Mary and her boyfriend Alex yesterday and today I've just met up with Ken Robinson, a fascinating retired gentleman who has made a home for himself in the Buddhist Studies department here in Bristol. Tomorrow I'll hopefully see my old advisor, Paul Williams, and meet several of the new students before catching a bus back to London.
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BLOGISATTVAS: In much more lighthearted good news, I have won a pair of Blogisattva Awards this year. I won a couple in 2006, the inaugural year for them, and was nominated for a few last year. So it was quite a lovely surprise to come up as a winner again this year. I should note that I was on this year's selection committee (but abstained in all cases from voting for myself - of course). The above link will give you the full list of winners - I highly recommend them all! My own awards came in the form of:
Best New Blog, 2007: Progressive Buddhism, a group blog with contributions by Ordinary Extraordinary [Justin Farquar], WH [William Harrison], Nacho Cordova, Buddhist_philosopher [Justin Whitaker], odin [Paul Jahshan], Tom [Tom Armstrong], and Joe in 2007.
Best Achievement Blogging on Matters Philosophical or Psychological [blog, blogger]: American Buddhist [the combination of American Buddhist Perspective (1/1-9/23/07) & American Buddhist in England (9/23-12/31/07)]; Justin Whitaker
I'm most surprised by the Political Post award, as it is typically a subject I avoid (half jokingly I'd say I don't talk politics unless I have either lots of energy or lots of alcohol in me). But I do keep up on the news and did see something recently that made me smile. It was when Hilary Clinton said during a debate something to the effect of, "whatever happens next, I am proud to be here on stage with BarackObama." Now, while everyone and his sister seems to have their own (often cynical) spin on this, I found it to be very beautiful, like a moment of genuine humanity in the otherwise very cruel and ego-driven game of politics. Of course soon enough they were back at it, but that is the nature of samsara, isn't it?
I, for one, will do what I can to see Obama in office next January. But first - the countdown on the right is telling me I have 3 days, 3 hours, and 3 minutes before I touch down in DC - a far more important milestone in my little life for the time being.
I am happy to say that I feel like I am recovering from my recent stress overload and I'm getting back to work. I may have been (and still am to some point) suffering from adrenal fatigue syndrome, which I take to be a fancy name for stressed out (with no break). According to some, this is the most under-diagnosed illness of the 21st century. From the link above:
You may have Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome if you are experiencing any of these symptoms:
Fatigue, lethargy
Lack of energy in the mornings, and also in the afternoon between 3 and 5 pm
Often feel tired between 9 and 10 pm, but resist going to bed
Lightheadedness (including dizziness and fainting) when rising from a sitting or laying-down position
Lowered blood pressure and blood sugar
Difficulty concentrating or remembering (brain fog)
Consistently feeling unwell or difficulty recovering from infections
Craving either salty or sugary foods to keep going
Unexplained hair loss
Nausea
Alternating constipation and diarrhea
Mild depression
Decreased sex drive
Sleep difficulties
Unexplained pain in the upper back or neck
Increased symptoms of PMS for women – periods are heavy and then stop (or almost stop) on the 4th day, only to start flow again on the 5th or 6th day
Tendency to gain weight and inability to lose it – especially around the waist
High frequency of getting the flu and other respiratory diseases – plus a tendency for them to last longer than usual
The bold ones are symptoms I've definitely had. If you find yourself nodding as you go through the list, check out the above link for tips on lifestyle and diet changes that can help out.
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Current Studies:
Right now I am clarifying my reasons for choosing Kantian ethics to help shed light on Buddhist ethics. Part of that involves working with Howard Caygill here, a Kant specialist, to formulate a very rich and subtle understanding of Buddhist ethics. This means getting beyond "Kant the formalist" where the Categorical Imperative is seen as the basis of his ethical system.
Kant is usually presented as giving only these abstract formulations: act so as to treat all rational beings as ends and not merely as means, act upon maxims such that you could will that these maxims be universal, etc. These sound nice, but also seem hopelessly detached from our daily lives, and thus pretty useless as ethical guidance. However, statements like this make up only one tiny corner of Kant's ethical world. It has been the error of countless thinkers after Kant to single these out as the essence of Kant's ethical thought and to ignore the rest.
At the same time, Buddhist ethics seem to have some similarly hopelessly detached notions such as non-self (anattā) and dhamma, a term that can be variously translated as: law, eternal law, the liberating law, the underlying law of reality, duty, morality, thing, the teaching, the Buddha's teaching, and so on. And just like Kant's Categorical Imperative, these are not terms that are helpful to everyone on the Buddhist path (a householder, for instance, is often simply taught to follow the five precepts and cultivate generosity).
However, for the philosophically minded, which in the Buddha's day included himself, many learned Brahmins, and his own monks and nuns, a fuller understanding of the nature of reality is needed. This philosophy was not for its own sake, but because the Buddhist goal of nibbāna is equated with seeing things as they truly are (yathā-bhūtaṃ). This seeing certainly needs to be accompanied by active moral cultivation of the precepts and pāramitās or virtues. Yet it may be said that one who is swift along the path without seeing quickly goes astray.
So my thesis will posit that such notions as no-self and dhamma form a sort of conceptual light at the end of the tunnel for those traversing the Buddhist path. This is how Kant saw the moral law and his Categorical Imperatives, as ideals to be sought after rather than formulas to be calculated. And so with dhamma. While at first it may seem like a hopelessly vague or abstract term, perhaps a relic of Brahmanism that modern Buddhists can be rid of, it turns out to have deep soteriological value as a goal toward which to strive.
In my (slow but sure) continued reading of Harvey's article on Free Will [view] [print] I have found another in-road into Kantian analysis and thought.
~ Kant ~
For Kant, happiness is something we make ourselves worthy of by following the moral law. That moral law, importantly (and oft misunderstood) is not something 'out there' - as in religious or political laws or rules. The moral law comes from us. But it is also not subjective, it is objective (and universal) because it is based in what we all share as humans: reason. Reason for Kant is a term of art. It isn't used as we use it today, in the instrumental sense: 'he reasoned his way through the situation,' or 'accountants are very reason-based people.' There, reason can be replaced by 'calculate'.
In Kant, reason is the faculty which takes us beyond ourselves as subjective, limited beings. It is what compels us to do the right thing even when we cannot explain this to others. It is the faculty by which people saw that slavery was wrong even when religion and politics sanctioned it. It is the faculty through which we see the dignity and irreducible value of every other human being (and, some would say that it eventually reaches to non-human animals as well).
You can see why Kant is so easily and often misunderstood. It is easy to read him without understanding his use of terms.
In any case, that is Kant on Reason (in a nutshell). By employing our reason we learn to see things from others' perspectives, we learn to see the good and dignity in others, in short, we quit being so selfish. For Kant it is our selfishness, and our selfish use of reason (here as mere calculation) that is the main cause of suffering in the world. The second cause of suffering is merely following the dictates of others.
The 'good Christian' for Kant was the one who, using his reason, determined that there must be a God and that one really ought to act for the benefit of all people as much as possible, utterly regardless of whether this will bring you benefit or not. A good Christian was not for Kant one who worked to please or impress the priests or parishioners or to master the dogma. Similarly, the good citizen realizes, through reason, the importance of a flourishing and stable society and the danger of revolution. The good citizen is not the one who carefully or mindlessly follows rules. Sure, impressing people and following rules have their place, but for Kant, doing the right thing (morality) would always trump either of these - and morality is the proper aim of all of us.
~ Buddha ~
It is in this fathom-long carcass, (which is) cognitive (sanynyimhi) and endowed with mind (-mana-), that, I declare (lies) the world, and the origin of the world, and the stopping of the world [nirvana], and the way that goes to the stopping of the world (S.I.62). {in Harvey, p.75}
Harvey comments on this thus:
Within the confining parameters set by a certain meaning-world, one has some freedom of action in accordance with one's degree of awareness and reflection. A more full and accurate meaning-world, closer to seeing things as-they-really-are and thus less affected by ignorance, opens up new possibilities, which are closer to the experience of nirvaana-the unconditioned (asankhata).
My Kantian-Buddhist angle on this would say that our degree of awareness and reflection is roughly the same as Kant's use of Reason (in the non-calculative sense). The more irrational we are, the more we are slaves to a very narrow meaning-world - generally determined by our religion or political persuasion and the people we have regular contact with. Our use of reason (generating awareness) allows us to rise above this, giving us a 'more full and accurate meaning-world.'
Our suffering is so much a result of our concepts - our attempts to box in the world and make it predictable (my friend and fellow blogger, Nacho, often remarks on the fact that Buddhism seems to be the only religion to stress the moral importance of accepting uncertainty). And where do we get these concepts? From other people and social, political, and religious institutions.
But this is not to deny the importance of institutions and other people. We need both of these. The problem only arises when institutions and people claim to give us some sort of certainty, or we seek certainty in them. This is a problem because change or flux is fundamental to reality. And flux (anicca) is fundamental to seeing-things-as-they-really-are (yatha-bhuta).
Nirvana, it would seem, is the fullest acceptance of flux - or fullest recognition thereof. It is a rising above the happy-one-moment, sad-the-next that dominates samsaric existence. This is a true happiness, one unconditioned by the vicissitudes of daily life, one which runs much deeper.
So for both Kant and Buddha it seems that happiness is a result of disentangling ourselves with the ways of the world around us in search of something deeper. This 'something deeper' was for Kant the 'moral law' and for Buddha the dharma. For both this was the goal of a good life. For both, bad things could still happen - living morally or according to dharma is no guarantee that things will be hunky-dory. The Buddha still had to confront angry elephants, a serial killer (angulimala), and his jealous and murderous cousin devadata. In recognizing this, Kant was quite clear that living a moral life is no guarantee of happiness - stuff will still happen - but it does guarantee that we are worthy of happiness, that is, we can rise above the stuff as it assails us.
It seems like it's been forever since I've posted on Buddhist Ethics, and almost that long since I've done any work on it. Oh well. We're moving past that slump now with a bit from an article fresh off the press (well, electronically, and it may be a few months old, hard to tell). The article is:
"'Freedom of the Will' in the Light of Theravāda Buddhist Teachings" by Peter Harvey [view] [print] from the 2007 edition of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics.
I should note a big kudos to Asaf Federman, a former coursemate of mine at Bristol (and soon-to-be co-panelist, more on that to come), who is cited frequently and approvingly by Harvey.
The one point that I wanted to post today was Harvey's modern logical extension of of the Buddhist concept of Karma.
While the idea did not exist in the pre-modern era, contemporary Buddhists are able to say that, as one gets one's genes from one's parents, and one gets one's parents from one's past karma, then any genetic influence on character, and thence behavior, is itself a mode of karmic influence. (p.47)
This is something I discussed a bit a while back. In that post I discussed the Buddhist five niyamas*. Though it is never, as far as I know, made explicit in primary or commentarial literature, I think these sets of causality may be seen as nested, that is, all that falls within a narrower category necessarily falls within the next larger. One example of such nesting is found in the similar categorization in the natural sciences, which may go something like this:
1) all that is, is determined by laws of quantum mechanics 2) within that is the category of (observable) classical physics 3) within classical physics are organic things governed by biological laws 4) certain biological things appear to have mental states* *since the mental is so poorly understood in Western thought, no proposal that these be governed by laws has yet caught on.
Notice that this is a sort of 'bottom-up' nesting, from the littlest things to bigger and bigger. Many materialists will simply leave it at biology and say that mind is 'reducible' to that level (thus avoiding messy talk of mind all together).
And here's the Buddhist model (with my nesting interpretation):
1) all that is, is within dhamma-niyama 2) within that is a category of (moral) action, the kamma-niyama 3) within kamma-niyama are mental actions, citta-niyama 4) only within mind (citta) are organic or cyclical processes, bija-niyama 5) and within that is the category and laws of mere matter, utu-niyama.
The Buddhist nesting theory is 'top-down'. It starts with the big, abstract stuff, dhamma, and works down to the material world. This makes matter itself a consequence of cyclical processes, which one could stretch to (match with contemporary physics and) say that the creation of universes itself is a cyclical process and it only within these that matter may be produced. More difficult to match up with any Western thought is the idea that organic or cyclical processes themselves are an outcome of mental actions, or that those fall on moral foundations.
Yet in Buddhism, at least in Tibetan expositions I have heard, everything does rest on moral, or karmic, foundations. Even our non-volitional actions, like rolling over and hurting a bug in our sleep (or a mouse if you're me), can only happen because our karma led us to have this body and live in this place. Yes, it would be silly (not to mention pedantic) to attribute every little thing to karma - to some past deed.
Later in the paper, Harvey explicitly asks: Is everything due to karma? (p.50) He suggests, that it is not karma, but other forms of conditioning that can be the cause of experiences (p.51):
At S.IV.230-231, the Buddha discusses the various causes of the experiences (feelings/sensations: vedayitāni) that a person might have. They can originate:
in bile...in phlegm ...in the winds (of the body) ...from a union of humors (of the body) ...born of a change of season ...born of the stress of circumstances ...due to (someone else’s) effort (opakkamikāni)… and some things that are experienced here, Sīvaka, arise born of the maturing of karma.
It is thus seen as incorrect to say that, "Whatever this person experiences, whether pleasant or painful or neither painful nor pleasant, all that is due to what was done earlier."
But how does this match up with Harvey's logical extension of karma above? Certainly if we wish to say that things caused by "(someone else's) effort" are not due to karma, then wouldn't our conception (so clearly a result of our parents' effort) be not karmically caused? It seems to turn on how you interpret the Pali canon passage cited above. I take it to say that it is incorrect to attribute every experience to some (particular) past action (karman). Harvey is interpreting it as saying that there are experiences for which karma (our past volitional actions) has no causal role.
But then another question comes to mind. If being born as a human is due to karma, as all schools of Buddhism emphatically claim, then aren't all experiences in this human body due to that same karma? Now, that is emphatically not to negate other causal factors. If I have a belly-ache, it makes more sense to investigate the Thai food I ate last night, not what I did in a past life. I take this to be what the Buddha was suggesting here.
It is said that in this passage the Buddha was specifically refuting Jain theory. This fact supports my interpretation. The Jains focused so heavily on karma that they sought both to create no new karma (through an ultra-minimalistic lifestyle) and to burn off remaining karma through austerity (tapas). In this context we can see that the Buddha is simply giving a less radical, more common-sense teaching: "maybe you are sick because of the 'changing of the seasons' or because someone sneezed on you, (in cases such as this) don't worry so much about karma." He is not making the more radical claim that there are certain things in our life completely outside the sphere of karma.
* niyama = conditions, constraints, or laws - see p.199 of Keown's Dictionary of Buddhism, 'Fivefold Lawfulness' or 'natural order' in Nyanatiloka's Buddhist Dictionary, p.135.
In looking back at a year passing I suppose we search for insights, teachings, and lessons for the coming year. Or just a quick summary to answer the question: what happened to my year?
I'll begin with my greatest insight: that no matter how great last year was, each year has the potential to be even better.
I say that mainly because, for some reason, I had the idea that at some point in my mid-20s I would reach a peak, after which life simply couldn't be as good. Granted, I had some great years, so I felt justified in thinking, "It can't possibly get better than this." For instance, going back to 2003, I had a beautiful relationship with T., the second love of my life, and began really growing to love Missoula through community and academic activities. In '04 things with T. ended and I committed myself to intensive self-improvement, with several hours each day in dharma study (via the Asian Classics Institute) and meditation, and then I was off to Bristol for my Buddhist studies MA.
In 2005 I found my feet in my Bristol studies, traveled around England, Ireland, Wales, and Spain, and developed some amazing friendships before returning to Missoula and philosophy studies. '06 began with a trip to Hawai'i, a note from my Bristol advisor that I had been awarded the mark of Distinction on my dissertation, and the rekindling of my wonderful (though long-distance) relationship with Ana in Spain. 2007
The year began well enough, celebrating with friends in Missoula. I was living in what is known widely as simply, "the 6th Street house," a dilapidated old mansion (which, legend has it, was one of Montana's brothels). An air of unhappiness filled the house, so I was all to happy to spend my time on campus, starting an intensive Philosophy of Religion (musings on omniscience and politics) class, working at the Center for Ethics, and hiding out in my office in the Liberal Arts building.
As January came to a close and the new semester began, I posted on the terrible situation in Tibet (which only seems to be getting worse). I was quickly overwhelmed with the new semester, teaching a course on Tibetan Buddhism at the University and taking a full load of courses myself.
February began with an excellent (if I do say so myself) post on Kant and Happiness. I conclude it by saying:
I like the youthful exuberance that I see in Kant's philosophy, his revolutionary anti-authoritarianism, his fist-pounding exhortations to self-development and loyalty to our moral sense, his recognition that the world provides a thousand and one distractions and excuses keeping us away from that very moral nature within us.
The premise that the world is 'for us' and that we are separate somehow from the rest of creation is the premise of our culture. It is the story we tell our children before bed, but also the story we hear on the evening news and on the corporate billboards, in the academic curricula and in the novels we read. And, according to Ishmael at least, it is the premise of a dying culture. It is a myth gone bad.
"Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them."
-Salvador Dali
Me: This speaks to our reactive tendencies: problem? fix it! So much of our lives consist of 'quick fixes' and superficial bandages on problems/mistakes that go quite deep in our lives/society. How does the story in Australia go?...
So before we act [in the world/with our bodies], we need understanding [the activity of clarity in the mind]. We need to empty ourselves of notions of how it is supposed to be. From there we can look at the world anew, just soak it up. And from there also we are able to respond without preconditions, without prejudices.
With May I think things lightened up a LOT. I finished teaching/studying, regained my footing, spent time in nature (much needed!) and finally got to a Socrates Cafe!
Specifically, I started off posting a great video on the value and beauty of living for others; and my decision (finally) to definitely go to London. Then, as the semester ended, I posted a round-up of the term. After that I returned to a regular topic in my thought, Buddhism: Happiness and Community, concluding that "Community is good, but for true happiness, we need solitude."
My first post discussed (or lamented - see February stuff) my ecological footprint in Missoula, which was WAY too high. Then I went on about my thesis - apparently I was making progress - but still got overwhelmed and began pushing back deadlines. Then a nice post from a news story on nature and depression (get enough of the former and you'll likely avoid the latter), and my own particular Buddhist interpretation of depression:
Depression in my experience consists of a brooding, a mind unable to just settle, a disconnection between the world around me and my experience. Meditation then is simply the exercise in settling the mind, over and over and over again, on the breath. It's like a work-out regimen for the mind.
In my second encounter with Kelly (after the Socrates Cafe) she mentioned the writer Edward Abbey... My following blog post? Philosophy: Edward Abbey "Note to self: get/read Edward Abbey (Desert Solitaire, or whatever)... Any of you know this guy? Want to recommend anything from him?"
Hehe...
The next day (June 7th) I got to look through my teaching evaluations (holding my breath....) and found out that, in fact, most everybody had really nice things to say :) - I guess I REALLY am my own worst critic. Then I traveled home to Helena, where some movies gave me impetus to take stock in life. I also managed to get out a bit with the family:
Here we all are [me and the family] after a day in Philipsburg, MT mining for sapphires. I then returned to philosophical/Buddhist ponderings with the question of identity (another one of my regular topics), wondering:
What exactly does Buddhism teach about "who we are?" Is it to abandon such labels and live purely in the moment? Perhaps is it more to recognize the contingency of all labels, to use them but not be trapped by them? Or could it be that for some, labels, as bonds to history and other beings, are as necessary as the air we breath?
My last post of the month came on the 23rd, as by this time I was spending nearly every day with Kelly - still as 'just friends' - but friends with an immediate deep spiritual bond and some major chemistry heating things up.
Well that gets us through June; and wow there's a lot there! It interesting to look over. In one sense I'd say it's pretty unremarkable in contrast to prior years. I seemed to be following a trajectory much the same as before. Little there would lead one to expect the major changes about to take place... And 'tis those that will be the subject of a future (very soon) post.
In my last meeting with my thesis advisor it was revealed to me that I ought to be learning Pāli. Ohhh... Shoot.
No worries. Picking up a canonical language of Buddhism should be a breeze. I've studied Sanskrit, after all, the canonical language of early Hinduism and 'father' language of Pāli. The two are remarkably similar: karma is sanskrit, kamma is Pāli; dharma / dhamma. Simple stuff, right? I'm sure there are some much tougher cases. I know 'ignorance' in sanskrit: avidyā, becomes avijjā in Pāli. But anywho...
In my search for 'learn Pali easy' on Google I came across some great resources. Here are a few:
एवेर्योने शौल्ड लीर्ण संस्कृत: everyone should learn sanskrit. I don't know if this is really useful (e.g. if I should need to compose something in Devanagari, the alphabet of early Pali and Sanskrit - and contemporary Hindi). But it can be fun. For instance, ever wonder what your name looks like in Devanagari? Mine is:
जुस्तीं व्हिताकर (Justin Whitaker).
I actually found that on the Sanskrit Links Blog, a useful and current repository of helpful links. (largely Hindu-based, but still helpful)
And that I found from Granthinam, a German academic's Blog - which itself has a good half-dozen other academic blog links.
I've also spent some time (too much for now, as Tibet is off my radar for a bit) at earlytibet.com; an excellent repository of the work and thoughts of Sam Van Schaik, a recent ph.d. and current worker at London's own British Library.
A few more - and more useful ones given my current assignment - are:
So, there are some fun resources if you're interested in fun with Pali and Sanskrit. I'm sure that's not many of you out there! BUT, for those with the interest and dedication, these should make for a fine start. Good luck and enjoy!
This is a bit of notes composed about three years ago when I was a student in Bristol working on a paper on the Early Buddhist Philosophy of Mind.Today as I work on Buddhist ethics it is again important.The Buddhist path, most of us know, is commonly divided into three parts: sīla, samādhi, and paññā (morality, meditation, and wisdom).Just how these three come together to form a path is a matter of dispute, but it is said that:
… sīla-paridhotā hi bho Gotama paññā, paññā-paridhotaṃ sīlam, yattha sīlam tattha paññā, yattha paññā tattha sīlaṃ.Sīlavato paññā paññāvato sīlaṃ, sīla-paññānañ ca pana lokasmin aggam akkhāyati. (Dīgha-Nikāya i. 123)
Or, if like me you can’t read a lick of Pāli:
… For understanding, Gotama, is washed around with virtue, and virtue is washed around with understanding.Where there is virtue there is understanding, and where there is understanding there is virtue.Those who have virtue possess understanding, and those who have understanding possess virtue, and virtue and understanding are declared to be the best things in the world.(translated by Keown, 2001, p. 39)
(Is it just me or is the Pali language just a lot more economical?)
The point is that ethics, or morality – doing the right thing – is tied in with wisdom, insight, or philosophy. As Socrates stated, “To know the good is to do the good.”
What is the good?What is reality itself?These are questions of metaphysics.
Metaphysics:1.the branch of philosophy that treats of first principles, includes ontology and cosmology, and is intimately connected with epistemology. (dictionary.com)
Metaphysics first aims to be the most general investigation possible into the nature of reality, asking, “are there principles applying to everything that is real, to all that is?” The second aspect of metaphysics is its quest to uncover what is ultimately real, frequently offering answers in sharp contrast to our everyday experience of the world.For instance, the ancient Greek philosopher Thales suggested that water was all that was ultimately real, George Berkeley is famous for asserting that mind alone is real, while many contemporary thinkers believe that matter alone is real. Understood in terms of these two tasks, metaphysics is very closely related to ontology, which is usually taken to involve both "what is existence (being)?" and "what (fundamentally distinct) types of thing exist?"
To elucidate what Buddhist metaphysics may look like we may employ the trilemma introduced by Prof. Earnest Sosa (In The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Honderich ed., p.559) of illusion, well-founded appearance, and fundamental reality.If we recall the three marks of existence: anicca, anattā, dukkha (impermanence, non-self, and unsatisfactoriness), then we can explain the Buddhist position on these three metaphysical levels of reality.
Illusion is obviously anything thought to have permanence, attā, or sukkha (satisfactoriness or unending happiness).To hold anything thinking, “I will have this forever” is to merely grasp illusion.To think to yourself, “this is my true self, this is who I am” is to create a boundary, an illusion.Even the view, “I am already enlightened” is an illusion.In fact the Buddha described the “conceit of I-am” (asmi-mana) as one of the most nefarious forms of ignorance.As Rupert Gethin clarifies, “Thus Buddhist thought suggests that as an individual I am a complex flow of physical and mental phenomena, but peel away these phenomena and look behind them and one just does not find a constant self that one can call one’s own.” (1998, p.139)Lastly, To strive for anything thinking it will bring unending happiness also is an illusion.Often, especially when we are young and ambitious, we think that reaching this goal or that will bring us happiness.And sure, we find happiness in reaching goals, but isn’t it always the case that our happiness is lost as we see yet another goal to strive for (thinking, “then I’ll really be happy.”).This is what psychologists today aptly call the hedonic treadmill.To get beyond mere illusion we must get beyond the ideas of permanence, of who we truly are – our true Self, and true happiness (in this world).
Well-founded appearance, it would seem, is represented in the various Abhidhamma accounts of dhammas.These are the essentials of experience: momentary, self-identical (svabhava), and caused.This is a move to a level of reality where spiritual growth can occur.It is in advanced vipassanā meditation practice that one moves his or her attention to the ever-changing flow of dhammas, to experience itself free of conceptual constructs – free of illusion.Of course, as any vipassanā teacher will tell you, this is based on a great deal of preparatory work, work done within the realm of illusion.
The final level, fundamental reality, is emptyof its own qualities, but is itself the anicca, anattā, and dukkha quality of all dhammas.This may be better understood by referring again to Inada’s claim that the anattā doctrine represents a Copernican turn in philosophy.[1]Whereas we would assume that metaphysical claims should come in the form of an assertion of an underlying reality, the Buddhist metaphysics points instead to everyday reality and says “this, this is fundamental reality.”There is no foundation beneath it to be found.
It thus becomes plausible to say that Buddhist metaphysics is an anti-metaphysics, insofar at it rejects abstract theorization and points instead back to the pragmatic aspects of meditation and ethics.Again, the metaphysics of Buddhism may be summarized as such: ultimate reality is nothing other than this reality seen correctly (yathabhutaṃ), this reality may be analyzed into constituent parts or dhammas, and it is from these dhammas that we, out of ignorance, construct the stories of our lives.
The therapeutic, or ethical, aspect arises when we truly come to terms with this understanding and its implications.The first step is in understanding that most of the big problems in life are illusions.War, poverty, disease, famine: all illusions.But they are based on well-founded appearances: instances of death, hunger, illness, and waste.Well-founded appearances are not themselves illusions: death is real, so is hunger and the rest.Yet it becomes illusion when it is seen as permanent, possessing self, and/or leading to ever-lasting happiness.
Seen correctly, as impermanent, not-self, and unsatisfactory, death, like life, takes on a new meaning.The two lose their mystique as opposites and we see that they are intermingling all of the time, just as wealth and poverty, disease and health, and so on are always commingling.Knowing this, it no longer makes sense to struggle so much for one and to avoid the other.Knowing this one lets go.One flows with life rather than against it.
[1] Kenneth Inada, “Problematics of the Buddhist nature of self,” Philosophy East and West, 1979, vol. 29, no.2, p.141.
Myths are not untruths, but truths that extend beyond the rational mind. - Dr. Alan Sponberg from his Intro to Buddhism Course.
The God I grew up with was a God that you would ask for things from, or appeal to when things didn't go your way or call upon to tell others that they are wrong. People around me spoke of praying to God for health, emotional strength, and money; they openly asked God why 'bad things happened to good people'; and they used God as an ally in their cases against the evils of everything from homosexuality to lousy parking. I knew people for whom 'good person' and 'church-goer' were synonymous and who could not (would not) believe it when a church-goer was accused or convicted of some crime or wrong-doing.
So it may not be surprising that at age twelve, when exposed to my first natural science textbooks, that I openly disavowed any belief in God. Since then I have traveled a long way, through atheism (weak and strong), agnosticism, secular humanism, trying to become Christian followed by nihilism, and then Buddhism (whatever that means). Through Buddhist practice I have simply tried to live more freely and in the present moment, to be open to ideas and people, to understand my weaknesses and cultivate virtues.
Two questions come up for me sometimes: 1) do I believe in Buddhist ideas like nirvana and karma? and 2) where does all that put me with God?
The answers are rather complicated, but put simply the answers are something like "sure, whatever (agnostic)" and "what-do-ya-mean by 'God'? (atheist)." Following Kant, and (I think) the Buddha as well, I think that certain things are just too big to fit within our puny intellects. Questions like, "is the universe finite or infinite" or "is there a (Judeo-Christian) God or isn't there" are just silly because they ask our finite, limited minds to judge something that is not with those bounds or limits. The Buddha was famously silent when people asked him such questions and Kant called those who claimed to have an answer pretentious.
However, for neither was this the end of the story. For neither of them denied the possible reality of such things. In the Buddha's case, karma - a moral sense of cause and effect - was simply taken for granted. And for Kant too, the fact that there is a moral law is something that we as humans simply cannot deny. As for nirvana - the total cessation of suffering* - the Buddha certainly taught it and claimed to have achieved it. Yet the Buddha also taught that one should treat his teachings as a goldsmith treats gold, by testing it in many ways to determine its authenticity. So I take it to be within his teachings that I don't necessarily buy into nirvana; not that I deny it, but only that I'm still testing it out and until I know from my own eyes whether it is authentic I will remain agnostic-open. Yet, as Allen W. Wood notes, "Kant also holds that it is rational to pursue an end only insofar as you believe the end possible of attainment through the actions you take toward it." (Kant, p.180) In that case I must admit that I believe in nirvana, or at least something quite close (I say that because my belief arises from experiences - periods of time spent free from all suffering - and the reasoning that such periods could be extended indefinitely). The belief therefore is one that I think a skeptic such as Hume could assent to - it is not an unquestioning faith but a trust in experiences that could be replicated.
Kant it seems was exposed to much the same God that I was. Allen W. Wood, writing in a very Kantian vein states:
"Religious communities have usually been founded on a supposed divine revelation, [a scripture] accepted as authoritative... ruled by a class of priestly tyrants, who have done more to enslave than to liberate the mind and spirit. The idea of serving God that such communities have had has often been corrupt and superstitious, consisting of a set of morally indifferent or even degrading constraints on conduct (the performance of rituals, meaningless restrictions on what people eat or when they are permitted to work, regular performances of fetishistic conjurations of divine presence or formalized practices of slavish praise and contemptible begging directed at the divine being -- conceived, accordingly, as a vain tyrant who is disposed to favor unjustly those cringing subjects who most flatter him and abase themselves before him)." (pp. 183-4)
Wow. He goes on about war and each side's use of God as 'on our side' and about religious claims to "exclusive access to divine will" and imposing beliefs on others.
It would be nice to think that that was just the Christianity (and Judaism and Islam) of the 1700s and that it is totally changed today, but as I mentioned this was pretty much what I encountered growing up in little Helena, Montana.
However, Kant did see a rational basis for belief in God - that of morality. You see, for Kant, to be good is to be worthy of happiness. And as we know many good people die without finding happiness. So for that moral law that Kant saw as undeniable to work, there must be an afterlife and some "wise, benevolent, and just Providence ordering the world." (p.180) This, for Kant, is God: simply the guarantee (or guarantor) of the happiness one comes to deserve through his or her morality in life.
How interesting. And this seems to be much the same role that karma plays for Buddhists. It is a law-like causality that guarantees happiness comes to those who do good (puñña). Thus to have experiences of freedom from suffering and the reasoned belief in the possibility of total freedom, one must have some reasonable connection between the two. That is, one must believe that one's actions (karma) will lead to the fruits (phala or vipaka) of happiness or nirvana. So it seems that in both cases we have reasoned cases for quite different beliefs. Or is it just that we have different words for much the same thing?
In part two I will explore that question, asking, "just what do we mean when we say 'God' - or karma or nirvana?"
* commentators are quick to point out that the end of suffering is not the end of physical pain. The Buddha still had pain as he grew old and died, he simply did not identify with the pain of his physical body. And it is this identification with or clinging to - as 'mine' - pain that causes us suffering.
I have been pondering a minor quibble in Buddhism for quite a while now (in fact it has been on my mind for about four years), so I figure I should share it with the world, even if I'm no closer to figuring it now than I was way back then.
The question regards the 'domain' of karma. That is, is everything that happens to me due to my karma? Now keep in mind that I'm not questioning the relevance or coherence of karma in our modern world. I'm asking 'as a Buddhist' (and academic) trying to understand the classical sources. With that in mind, there seem to be two classical statements:
1) "not everything that happens to a person is seen as due to karma." (P. Harvey, 2000, p.23)
SN 36.21: Sivaka Sutta — To Sivaka {S iv 230; CDB ii 1278} [Nyanaponika | Thanissaro]. The Buddha explains that present experience cannot be described solely in terms of the results of past actions (kamma).
[Moliyasivaka:] "Master Gotama, there are some priests & contemplatives who are of this doctrine, this view: Whatever an individual feels — pleasure, pain, neither-pleasure-nor-pain — is entirely caused by what was done before. Now what does Master Gotama say to that?"
[The Buddha:] "There are cases where some feelings arise based on bile. You yourself should know how some feelings arise based on bile. Even the world is agreed on how some feelings arise based on bile. So any priests & contemplatives who are of the doctrine & view that whatever an individual feels — pleasure, pain, neither-pleasure-nor-pain — is entirely caused by what was done before — slip past what they themselves know, slip past what is agreed on by the world. Therefore I say that those priests & contemplatives are wrong."
(because I'm fast becoming a nerd, I'll pop in the Pali from here)
"There are cases where some feelings arise based on phlegm... based on internal winds... based on a combination of bodily humors... from the change of the seasons... from uneven care of the body... from harsh treatment... from the result of kamma. [kammavipaka is 'the result of kamma' - I'm not sure what jānipi refers to] update - jānipi is a verb, I believe it means 'coming from.'
~
Anyhow, now that I've lost half of my readers (and myself) down this strange tangent, I'll return to my point: how extensive is karma?
The counter argument seems to come in Shantideva's great work "A Guide to teh Bodhisattva Way of Life." Here he discusses, in his chapter on Patience, the notion that karma, or our past actions, must be considered whenever we are to place blame for (our) suffering. Giving the example of someone striking him he states (translated by Wallace and Wallace, 1997):
43. Both his weapon and my body are causes of suffering. He has obtained a weapon, and I have obtained a body. With what should I be angry?
44. Blinded by craving, I have obtained this boil that appears as a human body, which cannot bear to be touched. When there is pain, with whom should I be angry?
Thus it seems that even being embodied as humans is attributable to karma - and if that is the case, then all that follows is due to karma too. Just as if I drop a rock on a mountain top that hits some more rocks and they hit some more, creating an avalanche, it can be said that I caused the avalanche and whatever distruction happened to follow.
We can discuss a remote/proximate distinction regarding karma. But I think it would be correct to say then that everything that happens to us has some moral (karmic) dimension - as Tibetan Buddhists seem to stress. So we can speak of accidents, but not mere accidents. That is, accidents can occur, but always within the domain of karma. Likewise if I am attacked there is always some extent to which I am responsible for that, simply for making the choices to be at that place and time (or even embodied).
The distinction may turn out to be nothing, but I have a sense that it is important for a 'Kantian' understanding of Buddhist Ethics, since for Kant humans always have the capacity of reason (and morality). Thus every situation is within the moral realm to some degree. Accidents can happen to me, but to say it was totally an accident (denying all agency on my own part) would be to deny my own freedom in the matter - to enter into Sartrean 'bad faith.'
Likewise I think a Buddhist must acknowledge that even his indigestion is at least proximately a result of his karma (to have a body and eat spicy foods). But that appears to contradict Harvey's conclusion that, "not everything that happens to a person is seen as due to karma." Would it be more correct to say that "not everything... is seen as due directly to karma, but everything that happens is in some proximate way still attributable to karma (cf. Shantideva, CH 6...)."
~
To throw in one more curve-ball, it goes back to the five niyamas (or laws) as well. The logical structure could be one of nesting; i.e.
1) all that is, is within dhamma-niyama 2) within that is a category of (moral) action, the kamma-niyama 3) within kamma-niyama are mental actions, citta-niyama 4) only within mind (citta) are organic or cyclical processes, bija-niyama 5) and within that is the category and laws of mere matter, utu-niyama.
Perhaps I'm trying to impose too much logical clarity to Buddhist thought where there simply is none, but that looks awfully tidy if that is how they constructed it.
It also could be helpful in compairing with Kant's phenomenal/noumenal distinction in which mind plays a nicely central role with the thing-in-itself and morality on one side and planets and physics on the other.
It seems like I've been discussing propaganda and the media a lot lately. A lot of it started when I watched Dove's new ad, Onslaught (posted on my friend Patia's blog). The ad made me feel sick to my stomach by first showing an innocent little red-haired girl (of course a spitting image of my future daughter) and then a flurry of advertising images aimed at women. It just gets worse after that with dieting images and then (worse!) plastic surgery... The commercial ends with our little girl and the words:
Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.
"Wow.... Bravo," I thought, "way to go Dove for spending your hard-earned advertising budget on something positive." Now I'm not naïve. I know that this kind of advertising might just make it more likely that I will choose to by Dove next time I'm at the store (fact check: yep, I am a long-time Dove purchaser, but I think more because it's cheaper than other name-brands). But I figure that if their ads are actually a force for good, I'd much rather support them anyhow.
~
Then I read a post on The Situationist called, "Hey Dove! Talk to YOUR Parent." Apparently Dove is a subsidiary of a larger company, Unilever, which also makes Lynx body spray. And it just so happens that Lynx advertising is about as awful as it gets (you can see the ads in the Situationist post - picture hundreds of girls in tiny bikinis running at a guy with the words:
Spray more Get more
displayed on the screen.
So... In effect Unilever is warning us against the evils of the beauty industry with its right hand and exploiting women and sexuality as a whole with its left. Pretty sinister, huh?Exploit sexuality, make money. Exploit the fact that a lot of us are fed up with the exploitation of sexuality, make more money. Next we'll see another Unilever company warning us against commercials altogether (at last!). And making more money (booo!).
I also discussed this a bit with, Lenart, one of my new flatmates. I said, "can't we just create commercials that teach us to see through all this corporate crap, to see that we're being brainwashed with images of beauty, masculinity, prosperity, and so on." He told me they tried that with young people [in Slovenia I think, where he's from]. But one problem: they underestimate the power of these industries. Even when people know that they're being brainwashed by it all, they are still affected.
~~~
So, on the one hand I'm being told that I'm too fat, too old, too poor (and all this would be solved if I just purchased X or Y-services) and that my fiancée is also somehow failing in every way that she isn't a wafer-thin twenty-two year-old rich model (really, they tell me this, I'm not making it up). That's one thing. I think I can even handle all of that. I love myself and my fiancée and I've read enough philosophy to know that youth, beauty, and/or wealth do not bring happiness.
But then this:
It's not that I'm opposed to the armed forces per se, but the glamorization of them really disturbs me.
Even more bizzare was this (from my new abode of England):
It mixes battle scenes, running with an injured person, and running across a tropical beach with (you guessed it) skinny, bikini-clad women. To give it credit though, at least it focuses more on what looks like the humanitarian aspects of the armed forces while the US ad just kind of pounds in the notion of Strength (which in itself isn't a bad thing).
~
Now for the 'anti-propaganda' propaganda. I couldn't find the original that this spoofs - I'd love a nice side-by-side comparison - but I'm sure you know the gist of it.
And, oddly equally stomach-wrenching (shouldn't it be more) as the Dove ad:
And this poignant rap:
The question: who to trust in the midst of all this? Nobody?
Yep. Nobody. As I meditate on one of the central themes in Buddhism, ignorance (Skt. avidya, Pali avijja), I see that both sides are filled with misconstruals of the truth (i.e. lies). And I, as a third ignorant party, have my own dilusions about the matters.
Considering the Dove ads, the biggest mistake would be to think that we see here 'both sides' of the industry or the beauty debate. Far from it. We're getting two corporate angles, two methods of selling stuff. As my friend Lenart pointed out to me, "at the end of the day, you're still getting the same message, that you have to buy things, or there is something wrong with you."
With the military/anti-military ads it is slightly different in that you're getting two radically different messages. But both distort the facts, both play with our emotions with graphics (and the music in that first one, sheesh). But in the end we could say they're both selling something, an ideology. And the ideology of militarism is one that will get more than a few bucks out of your pocket - it can get chunks of your life, perhaps all of it. And anti-militarism seeks no less (though I doubt they can recruit many, like Cindy Sheehan, that will put their life on hold for the cause).
So where does the Buddhist stand in the midst of all of this? A bit bewildered? Yes, quite likely. I don't recall if it was Lenart of me that suggested that we need a Buddhist advertising company - producing comercials that just tell us to be happy with who we are, to love those around us, to find contentment in a simple life, practice generosity, and so on.
Based on the teachings of Mipham Rinpoche ("Mipham the Great", 1846-1912). It takes a minute to get into, but watch it (at least listen) to the very end - it's worth it.
may you be happy
may you be happy
may you be happy.
I'm sure this won't end our worries about beauty and war today, tomorrow, or in the near future. But it does seem to be the Buddhist answer. To quote from Bikkhu Bodhi on the power and importance of simply following the precept to abstain from harm:
The Buddha says that one who abstains from the destruction of life gives immeasurable safety and security to countless living beings. How the simple observance of a single precept leads to such a result is not immediately obvious but calls for some thought. Now by myself I can never give immeasurable safety and security to other beings by any program of positive action. Even if I were to go on protest against all the slaughterhouses in the world, or to march against war continuously without stopping, by such action I could never stop the slaughter of animals or ensure that war would come to an end. But when I adopt for myself the precept to abstain from the destruction of life, then by reason of the precept I do not intentionally destroy the life of any living being. Thus any other being can feel safe and secure in my presence; all beings are ensured that they will never meet harm from me. Of course even then I can never ensure that other living beings will be absolutely immune from harm and suffering, but this is beyond anyone's power. All that lies within my power and the sphere of my responsibility are the attitudes and actions that emanate from myself towards others. And as long as these are circumscribed by the training rule to abstain from taking life, no living being need feel threatened in my presence, or fear that harm and suffering will come from me.
To begin it should be stated why one needs to study and understand Buddhist Ethics. One could argue that since it is not an obvious category within the tradition itself that Western scholars really have little place trying to create a 'Buddhist Ethics.' It has also been suggested that doing so only distorts Buddhist thinking with the concerns of Western thought.
To the first objection it must be stated that while Buddhism seems to have little in terms of explicit thought dedicated to a category answering the question, 'how ought I act' in a way that the West has, it does have a wellspring of injunctions on proper living combined with teachings on the methods (meditation) and understandings that give rise to awakening (in fact these three are encapsulated and expounded upon as the three-fold path of sila, samadhi, and pañña, often translated as ethics, meditation, and wisdom). In my own work I see all three of these as necessary elements of what in the West we study as Ethics.
The second objection is far more important and far more difficult to overcome. Over time the Buddha's teachings have been (mis) used to support Schopenhauer's pessimism toward the world, Victorian British humanism and rationalism (explicitly contra Christian dogma and superstition), and the American anti-authoritarian hippy/drug culture of the 1960s. It has also been abused by Nietzsche as life-denying nihilism, by Italian missionaries as Satan's version of Catholicism, and so on. It seems that few from the West have been able to come to Buddhism with clear eyes. Instead, as Damien Keown notes at the start of his Very Short Introduction to Buddhism, we are like blind men sent to examine an elephant and report back what we have found: one grabs the leg and reports it is a post, another gets the side and reports it is a granary (or a barn), and so on.
Yet this does not mean that the work should not be done. One important reason is that 'Buddhist' and 'Western' are no longer exclusive categories (as if they ever really were). Today more and more Europeans and Americans are becoming Buddhists or adopting elements of it into their lives. At the same time, the influence of Western thought now pervades traditional Buddhist countries. Even many the most 'traditional' Buddhists there are interacting with Westerners and their thoughts and this cannot help but influence their teachings on Buddhism.
The criticism does stand though, and ways to handle it are being sought. One method, employed in the recent volume, Indian Ethics: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges is to encourage a two-directional exchange in which traditionally Western concepts and categories are used to interpret Indian thought and vise versa. This is done to avoid the all too common practice of 'cherry-picking' bits of thought and running them through your categories to prove your point (Victorian Englishmen, German Philosophers, Italian Missionaries, and most recently American Hippies have all been shown to have done just this). I will attempt to follow the authors and editors in Indian Ethics by utilizing the categories of Buddhism to critique Kant (and Western thought) as much as the latter are used to critique the former. [fn. 'critique' here is used to mean examine, not criticize] Just as language of rights and duties cannot be left out in a fair discussion of Kant, notions of kamma (Skt. karma) and rebirth cannot be conveniently set aside in illustrating Buddhist ethics.
cf. Cooper and James, p.39: "Two conceptions in the general framework that the Buddha certainly did not repudiate are the related ones of rebirth and karma. These are not conceptions that will loom large in our exposition and interpretation of Buddhist moral thought. And that, perhaps, is just as well, for if these notions play an indispensable role in Buddhist ethics then it is not an ethics that could have much appeal outside Buddhist and Hindu circles -- for people, that is, who are unable to subscribe to the doctrines of rebirth and karmic law."
This, it seems, is like saying we will set aside conceptions of God and Heaven in our discussion of Christian ethics because those are not things to which everyone can subscribe; or that we will set aside conceptions of the equality of humanity and evolution in our discussion of Humanistic ethics. Certainly, it must be admitted, the resulting description will be distorted. Ethics and other issues dealing with what may be called metaphysics, cosmology, and ontology, cannot so easily be set asunder - certainly not in Buddhism.
On the other hand, describing Ethics by simply observing the activity of people and perhaps asking them why they act thus (what I will term the anthropological method) does provide its insight. [fn. see pp. 1-2 of Indian Ethics for discussion of three methods of Ethics] Furthermore, it might be argued that many Buddhists don't think much about karma or rebirth as shaping their actions (or that Christians don't think much about God or Heaven). But, just because a Christian's first answer for 'why do you do this' may not include these notions, they are none the less central to her reasoning. For, if asked 'why' her answer was given, before long these concepts will be invoked as something like 'final reasons.'
This questioning in the service of seeking higher (or 'deeper' - choose your imagery) reasoning is the providence of a second method in Ethics, which I will refer to as the culturally philosophical method). Here the reasons which unite a whole tradition are fleshed out; these are the reasons which ultimately unite Christians to other Christians and Buddhists to Buddhists and so on.
A third method, the universally philosophical method, also known as meta-ethics, seeks to unite traditions, to show how they say the same things at times and why they differ at others. Meta-ethics also seeks to show the inconsistencies within traditions and at times to show the supremacy of one over another.
All three of these methods must be used to get a full understanding of Buddhist Ethics, which ranges from such anthropological issues of who becomes a monk/nun and why to very philosophical questions of why the Buddha taught the idea of anatta (Skt. anatman = no-self, or not-self, or non-self). And though he did not employ the current Anglo-American analytic idiom, he did discuss such things as the definition of brahmin (or priestly-caste person, stating that the definition depends upon deeds, not birth) and kamma (or action, by equating it with cetana = intention).
This work of the Buddha (or his early followers, as it may be argued that we cannot say for certain that any of the Pali Canon really is the Buddha's words [cf. Gombrich on this]) is done within a given cosmology, with a given metaphysics, and so on. And, while it is often cited in Western 'dharma books' that the Buddha eschewed metaphysical inquiry, he did teach of and within a stated metaphysical world-view.
Thus, while we may not accept certain aspects of the world-view presented in the early texts, or we may find it internally contradictory at times, we still must not set any part of it aside if we are attempting to understand Buddhist Ethics. Once we understand that framework in its wholeness we can properly ask both why certain aspects changed (for instance, as Buddhism flourished in Tibet and China) and if (and under what circumstances) certain aspects may be subject to change today, as Buddhism and the West collide.
I am an almost-life-long Montanan; a baptized Catholic; an ardent Atheist; a practicing Buddhist; a lover of Wisdom. I find solitude to be as essential as air, though I am at times gregarious, and very often joyful, alone and with others. I laugh at my own jokes, love learning, and love those who truly love.... anything. I have certainty in little, and little time for those who are certain of much, though admire those whose certainty leads to service of humankind.
I have a BA and almost an MA in (Western) Philosophy, an MA in Buddhist Studies, and am working on a Ph.D. in Buddhist Ethics at the U of London.
