by Richard on November 12, 2019

No self (Anatman, 空 kū)

Here I talk about one of the three marks of Existence (Pali: tilakkhaṇa; Sanskrit: त्रिलक्षण, trilakṣaṇa, Japanese: 三法印 sanbōin). The Buddhist idea of No-self (Sanskrit: Anatman, Japanese: 空 kū)

The habitual way we think and feel about ourselves is to think we have this unchanging separate part that looks out on the world, a soul, spirit. What we call ourselves. The self then is like a boundary, that describes an inside, and an outside.

Descartes idea that he was sure of himself as existing because he had thoughts (I think therefore I am) is an example. Daniel Dennett the philosopher described it as a Cartesian Theatre, as if there is this little me inside watching a film of the outside. In film it’s like the little alien, inside the big aliens in Men in Black.

A feeling of ego. A thinker who thinks, a person who does, a feeler who feels, a senser behind our sensations.

Our identity is something we create. We go into ‘i’ making and ‘my’ making. We claim belongings like our possessions: car, home, clothes, job even our things are me. But it’s more than just our belongings, our possessions also include our ideas. Our beliefs: I am a Christian, Atheist. Nationality I am British. Race: White, Black, Asian, Western. So much more is part of it.
Our sense of identity gets made in the things we hold onto. We can so attached to them.

This notion that there is a fixed, separate part of us that denotes who we are is not agreed upon by everyone, however.

The Self as sensation

The Buddhists believe everything is in flux, and we are no exception. To say ‘me’, ‘I’ or ‘you’ is merely a convention of language. It allows us to talk to each other about the world, so we can get on with our lives, but it does not reflect reality.

This feeling of a separate self does exist, but it’s an illusion.

You might say it’s contradiction, but that’s failing to understand that something illusory doesn’t mean non-existence. An example are Mirages, those bodies of water on land when there is really none.

Does a mirage exist? We think not because the water fails to materialise. But a mirage is not an optical illusion. You can photograph them, and they follow physical principles. It’s light bouncing off a layer of heated air just above the surface. What we’re looking at is reflected sky or a distant object.

The self exists as an illusion. It’s a feeling, a sensation of separation from the world, the cosmos. That we are doing this all alone. We feel it without knowing it, sense of a duality there, Me vs Cosmos, or the world.

We think of ourselves as a separate ego or self, disconnected from the world. That misconception gives rise to our suffering: fear, worry, loneliness, and a host of other problems.

It’s that duality, that feeling of separation we need to see as illusory. Our bodies are forged of the material substances from outside. But also the contents of our minds are connected to what’s going on outside of our minds.

Take your thoughts when reading a book or listening to a friend. Your thoughts follow what you read or what they say. They influence what you think and feel.

Or think of it like watching TV, or a film, you get immersed in the story. What we think about is related to what we have experienced in our lives. The present, mixed with memories of past.

At no point in our lives are we voluntarily thinking or feeling, such sensation comes unbidden into our consciousness. Neither is the content under our control.

The Self as an idea

The notion of the separate self can be seen as the same practice we do when making maps and models. We draw arbitrary dividing lines between things.

Like the maps we make the Self become an abstraction of reality. The boundaries we create are not there, we just think they are in order to talk about them in the language of nouns.

It’s the Ship of Theseus. Our identity fuzzy, but that’s hard to communicate, so we create simpler versions. Our mistake is in forgetting we create these simpler, abstracted versions of ourselves. We think we are the caricature we and others create.

Our ego then is defined by our ideas and the language we use, but such ideas are never reality itself.

The Self as Cosmology

How we think about ourselves is to also hit upon how we relate to the cosmos as a whole. The East ways of thought and that is very different in how we have typically thought about ourselves and the cosmos in the west.

There is in Hinduism and Buddhism the idea of Indras Net.

It’s described as a cosmic net with jewels (or dewdrops) on the strands. Upon the surface of each jewel are reflected the images of all the other jewels, and in each reflection of all the other jewels in that reflection and so on.

It’s a metaphor for the cosmos and its interconnected nature. All entities are reflections of all other entities. Because of this, we are reflections of the cosmos as a whole.

We are not separate because we are the cosmos.

Our self, the narrative we tell to ourselves about ourselves is but a jumble of reflected images from elsewhere.

To put it briefly, We don’t ‘have thoughts’, we ‘are our thoughts’, along with feelings sensations. All bundled together and changing moment by moment.

‘You are a verb that’s things itself a noun.’

You are a process, not a thing. We all changing, we’re all WIP, works in progress. The self then is more of a metaphor, not a real thing. You are not part of the cosmos you are the cosmos.

by Richard on November 9, 2019 Leave a Comment

Seeing Impermanence to overcome anxiety.

Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.”
Dan Gilbert

These words of a psychologist point out our fundamental mistake we make when it comes to who and what we are.

Anxiety, depression, low self-esteem. We think these are features that define who we are, and there is nothing we can do about it.

However anxiety and fear come from a genuine through the misguided belief that we are flawed.

With that belief, we fail to try and change because we think it’s an irrevocable part of who we are.

With such a damming indictment of ourselves anxiety and fear are never challenged, never examined, and therefore can never be addressed, so the cycle continues.

This fixed sense of ‘the self’, a separate essence or spirit that makes us who we are is the basis of our suffering.

We need to see, just as I did that this idea needs to die. My journey is me learning that I was wrong about myself and who I thought I was. I had to learn that there is not me just the story I tell myself, which I could also change.

All of which makes a point. Who we think we are is not based upon facts but a story, a narrative we tell to ourselves about ourselves. That story of worthlessness, self-pity and weakness is what needs to change because it’s false.

To overcome anxiety it has to be about addressing the illusions and falsehood that occupy our mind. How we think and feel about ourselves and the world.

Once seen these illusions don’t have quite the same hold over us as they once did. They still have power, in tough moments the old narratives come out.

‘I’m no good at this’
‘Up never amount to anything’
‘I’m unlovable and desire for loneliness and death. ‘
‘Good for nothing. ‘

But we challenge those beliefs/narrative, and rewrite it bit by bit so our mental habits are more accurate and empowering.

This change is difficult because we tend to resist change, stick with what’s familiar. The old ways, ideas, lifestyle, relationships and possession gives us certainty and safety.

(Further still this notion of safety and security is also an illusion that needs to be challenged).

It doesn’t take much observation to know that the world around us in perpetual flux. Nothing lasts, and that scares us because we can’t find anything to hold onto.

We make the mistake of thinking that to exist is to have some intrinsic unchanging feature that defines the object, ideas, a person.

Change is inevitable, even desirable, but it takes courage to challenge the accepted wisdom, especially about ourselves.

This is related to the Buddhist terms of ‘No-self’ (Anatman in Sanskrit), and Impermanence (Anitya). That all things have no essence or unchanging soul. Everything including ourselves in under a change. It’s one of the biggest steps we have to take to move from our fear-induced states of stagnation.

To exist is to say it’s ‘ongoing’, like a storm or a cloud. A storm exists when the right wind, humidity, temperature, and other factors come together to form the thunder clouds. There is no single feature or essence of a storm that makes the storm. In Mahayana Buddhism, it’s empty (Shunyata.) of essence.

‘You are a verb that’s things itself a noun.’

This is Process Philosophy, Being as becoming, or the ontology of becoming. To exist is not a ‘state’ of being but a ‘process’ of being. ‘I’ as a separate self is something that that does not exist

The cosmos is a process, and so are you.

To put in in ‘verbing’ language: the cosmos is ‘starring’ right now, some of those stars are ‘planeting’, on one of the planets, we know it’s ‘peopling’ right now, and one of those ‘peoplings’ is Richard ‘Collisoning’.

The sky is ‘storming’, plants are ‘flowering’, they don’t ‘have flowers‘, they are the flowers. You don’t have thoughts, you are your thoughts. The ocean is the same. The ocean ‘waves’. (The ocean is in the process of waves). The ocean does not ‘have’ waves, it is the waves.

So everything is ephemeral, in a state of change.From individual atoms, through cells, ideas, language, people, places, plants, objects, whole ecosystems, civilisations formed, and die. throughout the cycle of birth and death.

It’s all a swirling maelstrom, at other times its a gentle breeze, but it’s always in motion.

To overcome anxiety we have to see reality clearly, and a fixed, separate self is a false, misleading notion that creates the other false ideas. Like ‘I can’t change’, ‘I’m doomed to be a failure’.

To this I ask, how did we ever get the ideas that our bodies are fixed and unchanging?

Because the illusion of the ego or separate self can’t see itself as an illusion. Illusions conceal themselves and the feeling of a separate self can be very strong, blinding us from seeing the illusion for what it is.

All this change can be a problem, we have a hard time dealing with uncertainty.When faced with change we grasp for, for safety, security, and fixed identity, knowing who we are is one way of finding it.

To overcome anxiety is to accept that it’s fine to feel what you feel, fear, doubt, uncertainty, that your spinning, in ‘motion’.

Once you see and accept reality for what it is happiness happiness becomes easier to find. Because now we’re operating with a clear understanding of how the game (of life) works. Instead of chopping wood against the grain we chop with the grain.

Such insights are liberating, transformative, like all good journeys of enlightenment are.

Image by skeeze from Pixabay.

by Richard on October 27, 2019 Leave a Comment

Romantic to Classical, and back again

Looking back at my journey, trying to deal with the anxiety and fear that held me back, I can see a pattern or path between two forces or worldviews in my life. That of Passion and Reason, or as I will describe here Romantic and Classical attitudes towards life.

But what are these two drives that seem to pull me in different directions?

I will outline my path and then go onto describe something about these two attitudes and why they are both important.

My Path

I’m was something of a romantic in my youth. I grew up with Star Wars as inspiration, of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. Even though I didn’t know what it was back then. Other stories like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Raymond E Feist’s Novels of Midkemia also have become part of my backstory.

All have the same format that Campbell laid out. Of heroes, battles, good vs evil and getting the girl.

A life lived passionately: Implacable enemies, facing your fears, a worthy cause, and fighting the good fight. I lapped it all up.

It sounds absurd now but it’s how I felt back then and still do in a lesser way.

My romantic side is but a part of me, but there is this newer part, that’s not so young and naive.

As I have grown I’ve come to see the flaws in such thinking, A childlike idealism in a world that’s full of complexity and nuance. Since then I have adopted a more rational attitude. Looking at psychological biases and fallacies. It’s been a fascinating mission to learn how our minds work.

However a few years ago I noted that it wasn’t making my life much better. I was living, but not feeling alive. Knowledge and reason are good, useful, but lacking in joy, passion, fun, and laughter.

So I have found myself walking back towards the passions of my youth, but this time, tempered with the wisdom of years.

The longest journey you will ever take is the 18 inches from your head to your heart
Andrew Bennett

The journey back happened because filling my head with knowledge didn’t work.

All that reading can’t eliminate uncertainty and insecurity, doubt will always remain. So to live a good life, I had to learn that I needed to take action, even with my fears and doubts. Because it’s the only way to grow and learn. It’s been a hard lesson, but a rewarding one.

As an aside, this journey back to passion from a joyless intellectual I found in the book Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. About a man who intellectual and scholarly, lives a seemingly joyless life, yet rediscovers passion and fun.

Here then is the path back towards passion. To fill life up with emotion again after rejecting it. It’s why I have turned to art, writing and taking more risks.

I enjoy my emotions more now that I understand them better, and can cope better with them. My romantic side is strongly felt.

I have found a middle way where I can hold emotion in without being paralysed by it or feel the need to run from it.

But it has not been a rejection of reason the path , I can’t go fully back. I’m now more centred, more somewhere in the middle, because I can see the merits and flaws of both viewpoints.

I’m gradually finding a groove that works for me.

So what are these two worldviews that have pay their part?

Two worldviews

Through both exuberant of youth, older thoughtfulness, now towards a balance of both.

The Romantic and the Classical, The Idealist and the Realist. Each one sees the world differently.

The Romantic attitude

Romanticism is a movement in the arts, literature, music and intellectual discourse that took place in the late 18 century that places its emphasis of human life on emotion, the individual, glorification of past and the future, and the Medieval period, not the Classical.

It was a rejection of the increasingly secular and rational society as it modernised.

Emotion and intuition are emphasised in a big way, with intense feelings in particular. Awe, terror, passion, ecstasy,. Nature is seen as an embodiment of a purer existence un-corrupted by humanity.

Frankness and plain speaking are seen as virtues. Taking a stand against the established order and institutions is seen as necessary. Romantics then are idealists. They see the world as it could be. The world they see now fills them with dissatisfaction, even anger compared to the vision of what could be. Injustice, nuance, compromise, timidity are obstacles that only get in the way of a better world. Wars get started, revolutions happen because change can’t wait.

The thought is there’s a better world out there to be created only if we are willing to take action to get it. They are not with the slow evolutionary process of gradual change but think that bold action can create this utopia in a much shorter space of time.

Winning is important at that’s the only way to rid the world of unwanted ideas, people, influences because the ultimate aim is purity and perfection. It’s different for the classic view which values a more nuanced attitude.

Romantics look upon the reason and analysis with suspicion, thinking it as dehumanising drive the turns people into cogs in a machine. They are also dubious that science can provide all the answers.

Romantics are essentially a follower of their gut intuition. There’s a biological basis for this too. Without emotion, we can’t make decisions. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio in his book Descartes Error describes an individual who suffered brain damage that rendered him unable to feel any emotion.

This individual could describe the facts of different choices, but he was unable to choose because he couldn’t decide what mattered to him the most. He was paralysed by his lack of emotion. The upshot is facts and reason don’t get us to decide which option to choose.

Romantics also value the rare, beautiful, and out of the ordinary. They don’t hold with the classical ideas the routine and the everyday are worth having. They want heroism, excitement ad adventure to end the boredom and monotony.

Romantic	Classical
Emotion Excess Subjectivity Imbalance Freedom Revolution Individualism Spontaneity Purity, perfection	Reason, thought Restraint, caution Objectivity Balanced Order Analytical Evolution Education Compromise Nuance

The Classical Attitude

The Classical outlook is different. It’s called Classical because it dates back to ancient Greece.

Socrates, Plato and other philosophers touted the ideas of reason and rationality to move towards a better world. (An example was Plato who was no fan of poets or poetry, explaining philosophy as the superior discipline).

The classical outlook is suspicious of the romantics’ high ideals because they have a downside.

The truth us people die in wars, things get destroyed. They see that people are subject to strong desires and without restraint, such impulses can get people, countries into trouble.

Things could be far worse they understand and instead advocate patience and a careful measured process of gradual change over time.

Revolutions they see can be hijacked by extremists and propelled to even more fundamentalist attitudes that bring forth shocking violence and suffering.

Romanticism has the problem in that it’s divorced from reality. It reveals our hopes and aspirations. Yet those same hopes can get us into trouble because they operate with a twisted idea of how the world works. It takes no account of nuance in life and the necessity of compromise to get anything done. ‘Quixotic’ is a term that describes this kind of pursuit of perfect or ideal notions without and understating of the practicalities involved.

A rational attitude is more down to earth. Rationality and analysis help us see these illusions and distractions, and prevent us from chasing everything.

Social order is respected, and being polite is seen as the way to maintain harmony in society. Unlike the outspokenness of the romantics.

Many people long for the good old days when things were better. Yet closer examination reveals that idea to be hopelessly biased. We only remember the good stuff and tend to forget the bad. The good old days are worse when we take of the of ‘rose tinted spectacles’ we look back at the past with.

The classical outlook searches for the underlying rules of reality. It seeks to find how the cosmos works without human perspective.

As for everyday life, a routine and discipline are seen as a way to cope with the uncertainty and chaos that creeps in. Routine and habits are the building blocks of a good life because they provide solidity and safety to existence.

Extremes, and the middle way

We can either lean forwards, headlong, experiencing the passion, fear, anxiety, joy, love, suffering, and living life to the full. But such feelings can be overwhelming, upsetting.

Or we can sit back analyse, categorise, plan, dismantle, conceptualise, and model. To find patterns and truths because intuitions can be wrong.

These two ways of looking at the world are both in conflict with each other, yet they compliment each other. The extreme of one can be countered by the use for the other.

The best path then is a more balanced approach towards life.

When it comes to solving problems romantics go with their gut. Classics go with reason. Romantic go with what feels right. Classics look at the evidence because they value clarity. Seeing things as they are not as we think they are.

Think of the two world views as Mr Spock and Dr McCoy. Two individuals who metaphorically sit upon the shoulders of Captain Kirk, advising him. McCoy, the voice of passion and feelings, Spock reason and logic.

Passion is what keeps us moving. It’s that feeling that it motivates us and provides the desire to get what we want, to become more than we are. Passion is what makes us feel most alive.

Reason is the tool we use to see reality and get stuff done, helping us to focus on what matters and what works.

Problems occur when we take these two drives to their extreme.

Passion without reason is scattered, directionless. It’s chasing after the next shiny thing. Reason without passion is indecisive and stagnates.

Conc

I had to take the journey through both of these attitudes, to see the benefits and flaws of both. Yet over time, we all tend to swing towards one or the other as the situation demands.

Now I can see that the best path is somewhere in the middle, each tempering the shortcomings of the other.

However, a lot of problems today I see are because people are too invested in one of the attitudes or the other. But it has to be said the it’s the overly Romantic we see most of all. Too much passion and not enough reason. It’s because the emotional path is quicker and easier, rather than the harder, slower rational one.

I have learned that both Romantic and Classical attitudes have important truths to impart and a good life requires the wiser path of adopting elements of both.

Seek the middle way, by never forgetting the opposite attitude.

by Richard on October 13, 2019 Leave a Comment

Why it’s so hard to accept reality? (and why we must)

Reality troubles me like anyone else. I find it hard to accept that which I disagree with, or I can see causes suffering the suffering I witness.

My answer to all this has been a mixture of anger, frustration, and withdrawal from the world.

But this in no way to live, to try a separate ourselves from the unpleasant aspects of this world will only leave us isolated from the wonderful parts and leave us feeling lost and alone.

One response is to try and eliminate those aspects we find hard to accept or bear. To eliminate enemies, destroy reputations, belittle, dehumanise and stereotype those who disagree.

The same goes with aspects of ourselves we don’t find acceptable, hatred, anger, jealousy, envy, emotions that reveal our selfish, cruel and malicious side. The part of ourselves we don’t like to admit. So we deny their existence, distract ourselves from these emotions, or blame others for our bad behaviour.

What we’re doing here is we are trying to split the world up into parts and only accept what we feel happy or comfortable with.

The problem here is our ideas about reality. We seem to think that the world should conform to our expectations, and when it doesn’t we blame the cosmos or more likely another demographic.

It’s an ego-centric attitude and the result is intolerance bitterness, anger, frustration. This can cause us to act appalling towards others. Because we only see the world through the lenses of our own need and prejudices.

Things have to be good, the world has to get better, what is right and just must prevail (or at least what we consider to be right, moral and just), because I’m the good guy here.

To look upon the world with disdain and contempt will leave us unwell from the stress and loneliness such a viewpoint brings. (Think like Scrooge from a Christmas Carol)

What troubles me is the single vision ethos. The fanaticism that leaves no room for diversity, or contrary voices or opinions or ways of living. Perfectionism also has to be one of the worst ideas, because in no way can we live up to it, and the cosmos has no obligation to do so.

Acceptance = Harmony

The solution is to take your ego out of the equation.

The world and your life are complex and fascinating. Accept the bitterness, the sour, the unpleasant, the imperfect, because they are just as much a part of life as the noble, the good, right and true.

The world is like a package deal, you have to accept the good with the bad.

This does not mean submitting to the bad behaviour of others. But getting angry or depressed as I have in the past will only leave you lacking any kind of peace. Not to mention poor health.

To those you disagree with remember, they have the right to have an opinion as you do, and the right to express it. To deny yours, and all that’s left is people on a rampage, trying to sanitise the world of anything they find disagreeable.

Our expectations are the cause of suffering. The hopelessly idealistic attitudes and the arrogant notions that the world must conform to them.

Life, existence is about suffering, to deny this is to deny life. Worse is to blame others and never once accept our part in creating the suffering we witness.

We should recognise diversity and complexity is the basis of reality. Yes I know we all desire simple answers, and easy to find solutions.

But we are all complex individuals, living in a complex world. To deny this is to leave our ideas divorced from reality. Lead to us making bad decisions.

It’s accepting that complexity and nuance of ourselves and the world at large leads us better able to deal with it.

Victory vs Harmony

It can come down to our worldview, what we believe is going on about existence and how best to live it.

In the west we characterise life as a struggle of good vs evil, with the aim is for good to destroy evil. You can see this if the art we create. Stories and films, it’s the good guys who win and live happily ever after.

Yet the real world is different. The bad guys live on, they might get punished for their crimes but they still get to have a voice.

Instead, we demonise our enemies, dehumanise then, claim they are not worthy and characterise existence as the endless war against evil, peddling fear and creating division.

Contrast this with the far eastern religions who see the aim not to destroy their enemies through victory but to be in balance with them.

Their goal is harmony not victory. A smooth balance of different forces that result in peace and tranquillity. Enemies become allies because we can learn from them, and their perspective may be just as valid as our own.

This doesn’t mean speaking out against what you oppose, but the point is you never try to eliminate opposing viewpoints.

If you wonder why in the west there so much conflict in the world, look no further than our worldview. Conflict is at the heart of how life should be lived according to our philosophical heritage.

In the book, the Powers at Be, Walter Wink explains the Myth of Redemptive Violence. It’s the narrative he western worldview of west operates under dating back to ancient Babylon. The ideas violence makes things right. That through battle, the right side wins.

Thinking you are in the right and the victory is your right is to live with an over-inflated sense of your own importance. This is the danger of that kind of thinking in that diversity of beliefs and different ideas must be eliminated.

The consequences of trying to eliminate the unwanted and ugly parts of life can be counterproductive. Trying to get rid of unpleasant emotions, like fear and anxiety can result in them being felt more intensely. Staying away from contrary ideas an opinions leaves us ignorant of our foibles and shortcomings.

This world is full of conflict and sorrow, pain and suffering. Of disagreements, and contrary ideas. How we respond to the fact determine or not if we will contribute to this suffering or help ameliorate it.

The why is because ego gets in the way. It’s a mind that thinks of itself and having the right way the only way.

I learned that to be happy and successful you need to take the needy ego out of the equation. Love life and yourself in all it’s diversity and difference, not just the parts we deem acceptable.

Blaming others didn’t help me become better at living or address my suffering, and may have helped perpetuate it.

Think of it as a reintegration with all of existence, not just the part we enjoy. It’s a reminder that all things are interconnected.

Acceptance is a major part of the Buddhist way and what they teach. We don’t get to decide how the world works, we can only learn to live in it.

Suffering and death are part of life, they give it value and meaning. We need to remind ourselves of them as a way of keeping us focused on what’s important.

A lot of our suffering is due to our own incompetence in living, yet here we are blaming others for our mistakes. Accepting that suffering is a part of life and that it’s down to me in how I respond was one of the biggest steps I had to take.

The world is a package deal and intolerance is no way to live a happy life.

by Richard on September 1, 2019 Leave a Comment

Decluttering / Minimalism is a spiritual practice

One unexpected side effect of minimalism is that it’s fires me up. It seems odd to get excited about getting rid of stuff, decluttering and organising.

But I can get jazzed up by imagining myself inside a tiny apartment or tiny house. There’s even a Youtube channel on it.

If it’s not the house it’s the furniture. Solutions that make better use of the space by folding up out of the way. Or hanging storage that utilises space normally left unused.

How cool is that?

But it’s not just about decluttering, it’s also about having fewer possesions.

What I have read has made me want to dive in. I can’t wait to be rid of the unnecessary distractions and baggage in my life. It feels like a weight is being lifted off.

All the stuff that’s lying on bookshelves, desktops and the floor I have realised is a problem. They are like the silent to-do lists. Saying ‘look at me, I need doing, don’t forget me!’.

I guess it’s because I’ve become more aware of how baggage can lead to stress, worry and extra work. All our possessions need organising, as well as fixing when broken, and replaced when lost. More possessions means more work.

Downsizing or Minimalism speaks to me and to many of us like never before. I guess it’s also part of the social change. That something has to be done about society that fosters so much destruction to our planet.

But it’s not just the environmental issue that grabs me.

The book and film Fight Club reminds us that so much of our culture is trying to get us to buy crap we don’t need. Finding happiness through possessions doesn’t work, and we have finally learned this.

‘The things you used to own, now they own you.’
Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

It speaks to the truth seeker part of me. Who wants to know how to live well.

Minimalism can be just a lifestyle exercise. But to me it’s far more. It’s part of a ‘spiritual’ quest to find meaning and happiness.

A part of us, of me sometimes just wants to get away from it all. Away from the work, the noise, the responsibility, the stress.

It what’s makes the emptiness so compelling, and why so many holy men and thinkers are drawn to it.

I read Walden by Henry David Thoreau last year. His two-year adventure on the edges of society, in a simple house he erected himself living simply.

It’s the ascetic appeal to live simply, away from society and really find out what’s matters most is appealing.

I think there are times when we all feel like this. It’s why we go away on holiday. To get away from the endless to do list and enjoy ourselves. Without obligation or authority compelling our choices and lifestyle. An escape.

Minimalism is about destruction and letting go to find the focus in our lives.

Without meaningless distractions and baggage we get to more spend time on the things we enjoy the most.

That means a better life for ourselves and a better planet along with it.

It was the book Goodbye Things by Fumio Sasaki that helped create this desire in me.

This book covers a personal exploration of this lifestyle ethos. He gives tips on on how to be more minimalist, but he also tells us about the impact it’s had on his life, relationships, and work.

From reducing housework, and fewer expenses he explains how it has made him happier, less anxious, less troubled by the busyness and distractions of his life.

Sasaki’s book becomes then not just an advocacy of a Minimalist lifestyle of also of a minimalist life as whole.

A way of finding the freedom we want, and a way to focus on what’s important .

For those just starting out Goodbye Things is an excellent primer on some of the obvious and no so obvious aspects of living a life with less.

Minimalism, is a way of living better because it helps us focus on what matters, without the unnecessary ornamentation and decoration we carry to prove to ourselves we’ve had a good life.

Minimalism is a life skill that affects many parts of our lives. From our finances, to surroundings, relationships, work, leisure and in a grander sense meaning and purpose. I helps provide time and energy to find them all.

Minimalism helps us live with more awareness and intention, as we ask ourselves if our possessions provide value for us, or give us joy? It’s an ethos that asks us to question what matters to us most. Are we spending our resources wisely on them? Instead of drifting through life we now more carefully cultivate a good life through what we own and purchase.

by Richard on June 30, 2019 Leave a Comment

A purposeless cosmos is not a problem

It’s claimed that life is meaningless without religion and it’s an accusation often levelled at atheists. They deny that the cosmos has any intrinsic meaning or purpose so their lives must be the same it’s argued.

Does it appear humanity is lost without some cosmic significance?

With advances in science, a diversity of beliefs in society we have lost a central narrative that unifies us. The vacuous politics, broken economics, it all seem hopeless to fix and what’s left is an existence without direction.

But do atheists have no meaning in their lives? Is society really bereft of purpose, and must it remain so? Are our lives fated to be doomed and pointless?

I think not. The lack of cosmic meaning is not the problem some think it is.

Impermanence is the meaning

Ultimate meaning it’s claimed, has to exist because we’re finite, so our life must be significant in a permanent timeless way.

Yet we seem perpetually absent-minded and forget that meaning can be found in front of us. It’s all around us in our lives, it shows up every day.

We’re always looking outside ourselves for someone to tell us the meaning. Can’t you figure this out for yourself?

Also, it’s odd that we think truth, meaning and purpose have to be these fixed, unchangeable things that we keep for life (to infinity and beyond!).

There is meaning in the transient. A sunset is no less meaningless for being over by the darkness. A flower is no less beautiful for one day wilting. Our friends and family are no less important for one day passing on.

We seek meaning in permanence, yet we live in a world of change.No wonder we’re suffering from a dearth of meaning, we’re looking in the wrong place.

The people in the Far East know this because their religions, cultures and cosmology accept the transience of life.

Japanese culture is a good example. There are the unspoken ideas of Wabi Sabi. The culture of imperfection, transience simplicity, and naturalness.

The beauty of nature is a big theme in the Far East. The Japanese Cherry Blossom festival (Hanami) is an example of celebrating nature in its transience. By appreciating the blossom that only lasts about two weeks.

If you can’t find meaning in your own family, friends then I feel sorry for your family.

Meaning is found as you live your life. It’s the work we do, the connections we make, the value we offer to others.

Life is full of meaning, it’s in front of your face.

Not an act of will

Thing is we think the meaning is something we create, an act of agency or will. I don’t think that’s how it works.

When I look at a painting, it can be meaningful or not, but I don’t make a conscious decision. The meaning arises naturally from the meeting of me and the world.

It manifests spontaneously like two chemicals reacting in a test tube.

We don’t choose the meaning, as much as it arises from within.

The Abyss

There’s also the importance of emptiness that goes with impermanence. In the west, we recoil when looking into the abyss.

The reality that the cosmos is indifferent to our existence, purposeless, and our own demise. All fill us with dread. Yet such a void is important.

In the east Emptiness is an essential part of their worldview.

The absence of a cosmic purpose means life matters more.

It’s why we should attend far more to the things they give us meaning to treasure the moments we do have. To know and accept that none of it will last, and appreciate them whilst they still exist.

Outside I see summer now, in three months time, the leaves will start to fall, the heat will fade. It gives me the incentive I need to appreciate the time I have outdoors more.

Emptiness reveals what matters in stark contrast, that’s the usefulness of emptiness.

Just like the sages, and wise men all over the world, the void beckons us and teaches us. Just as we see a light more clearly in darkness.

Just like them, we all need to step away from the world every now and then and feel the emptiness, so it can remind us what’s important in life.

Humanity

I’ve been considering my own Existential crisis. As a younger man, I was lost and alone. I had, (still, have) such a passion, a yearning for something in my life that could guide me. I felt desolate inside.

Then I began my quest to find out what mattered to me the most and find the meaning in my life. I had to go through that phase in order to come out of the other side.

I have come a long way from the emptiness I once had.

As for humanity, I feel it has to go through the same journey. We have to figure out a purpose for ourselves to guide us.

I see the seeds of such a journey now. In the greater passion to fix the planet, to find new ways to live in this world. To repair the out-of-date economic and political systems. There lies the greater meaning we have been looking for.

The next phase of our growth lies in how we live in a rapidly shrinking world side by side and take care of the planet in the process.

Humanity needs to find a new purpose, one we can all agree on, so it can’t be supernatural.

There is meaning in this world, it’s all around, even in the void. Not everyone who stares into the abyss is scared by it. The claim atheists have no meaning in their lives is not only erroneous but illogical. It shows how some people find it hard to accept the reality they do face in all it imperfect transience.

Our existential crises can be fixed, we just need to look harder and in the right places. Not to some proposed supernatural answer, but to the impermanent reality we face every day.

Clarity and Reality