Enlightenment is Not Enough
When I speak of Enlightenment, I mean in the Buddhist sense – where you are able to understand how things are in their most basic sense, and be free from delusion. The practitioner achieves this completely on her own – or as she might say: by merging with Buddha nature.
It is important not to get stuck in words at this point, because this is not a verbal process, and part of the practice is staying away from words. After the fact, different people will use different words to explain what happened. But the smart ones will refrain from doing so.
In my experience, most people who profess enthusiasm for Buddhism know practically nothing about it, and don’t really want to – since it is a way of life, not a way of thinking about life. And living is something they avoid.
Which brings me to my point – we have to acknowledge, intellectually, that we have been hit by a new force we were not prepared for. And include this knowledge in our personal practice, whatever it is.
What is this new force? To answer this we have to work backward from where we are, and take careful stock of our present situation. Something no one wants to do, because the present situation is to horrible to contemplate. It requires going back and forth between the meditative (non-thinking) state and the thinking state. Something we have never done before.
We have to realize how destructive our dominant activity, business, has become. This is something no one is willing to recognize. Even meditators, who have been hard at work at perfecting their craft, refuse to look at this, or take it into account.
Business, in itself, is not the problem. It is a natural human activity. But this new kind of business is very much a problem. It probably started with the Industrial Revolution, where large, powerful machines (starting with the sailing ship) made their appearance.
They (and all their service industries, such as banking) could be used to obtain immense wealth (for a few). But more importantly, they provided employment for vast numbers of ignorant people, who were content to live mediocre lives. The era of mass man had arrived.
This is the new force I was talking about. But these new people are incapable of (and unwilling to) understand it – or anything else. They are very much part of it, cannot separate themselves from it, and are afraid of living.
There is an aware minority, as always, but they do not seem to understand the basic problem. Which means we are in a very serious situation indeed.
“For men tied fast to the absolute, bled of their differences, drained of their dreams by authoritarian leeches until nothing but pulp is left, become a massive, sick Thing whose sheer weight is used ruthlessly by ambitious men. Here is the real enemy of the people: our own selves dehumanized into ”the masses.” And where is the David who can slay this giant?” ~Lillian Smith
Hal, I admire your candor and concern for humanity. We’ve had similar experiences, i.e., being raised religious (Christianity), and losing a spouse to suicide. Most of your posts tend to cast a gloomy outlook but they are always interesting. You mentioned that there is a minority who are aware but they don’t seem to understand the basic problem.
There are many who do understand and are quite proactive, i.e., Jeremy Rifkin – President of the Foundation on Economic Trends (see short video) and Phillippe Goldin, a research neuroscientist at Stanford who also trains children in family and elementary school settings in mindfulness skills to reduce anxiety and enhance compassion. In an age of information we have no excuse to not understand the basic problem(s).
One of those basic problems is dopamine addiction. The ‘new’ kind of business you speak of is really not new. It has simply been repackaged and relabel. The goal is always the same. To feed their insatiable addiction. The masses are the enablers.
http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_rifkin_on_the_empathic_civilization.html
Thank you for your comprehensive comment. I had not heard of dopamine addiction before, so I just did a Google on it. I also watched the Rifkin video.
However, I am still convinced we do not understand our overall problem, it is just too complicated, or more accurately, complex – too many things are affecting too many other things, with all all kinds of different feedback going on.
I think our most important task is simply to realize that the situation is out of control, and cannot be fixed. And not think the situation can be fixed somehow, by doing this, that, or the other thing.
I am not against trying to fix things, we should be trying everything we can. But at the same time we should be recognizing that our world ended some time ago, for reasons we do not understand – although we have a good idea what some of the major culprits are.
Unless we have this realization, what time we have remaining will be wasted. We have to realize where we are, and the seriousness of our situation, before we can begin to do anything about it.
You’re welcome, and I do appreciate you taking the time to watch the video. I left you the very short version, but there is a longer version on one of my blog that’s well worth listening to, IMO. Based on my own research, he’s spot on. I agree with you that it is a complex situation, no doubt, but it has been caused by just a few factors. I’ve spent the last 10 years, averaging about 60 hours a week, researching these problems. I’ve done so because, like you, I see the seriousness of the situation. Carl Sagan said that a species or organism that wars against itself is doomed. Our current situation is dire, but not hopeless.
The reason I brought up dopamine is because it is one of the key players. The neurotransmitter plays a major role in motivation and reward. A hierarchical culture, i.e., patriarchy, has done great harm to humanity, and dominance and aggression releases huge amounts of dopamine, leading to addictive behavior. Addicts will sometimes do what ever it takes to feed their addiction, including lying, stealing, cheating, and killing. Studies also show that to much dopamine can lead to mental illness. Is it any wonder that the world seems to have gone ‘mad’? Before patriarchy,. humans had non-hierarchical, egalitarian social structures. Patriarchy has contributed to enormous suffering and the instability of our planet. It’s like functioning with a brain without the right hemisphere. A culture/belief system that dehumanizes will have dire consequences. The developing brain in children is especially affected. My latest blog entry touches on that.
There is an excellent article title “Peace Among Primates”? http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/peace_among_primates/
If you don’t want to read the whole article, scroll down to “Left Behind”. The “Garbage Dump Troop” baboons are indicative of our culture. When we get rid of our garbage dump troop behavior, (garbage in, garbage out) we, as a species, have a good chance of survival. It’s also interesting to note that these garbage dump troop baboons had a rich diet (dopamine), were highly aggressive (dopamine) and dominant (dopamine). High testosterone levels also coincide with high levels of dopamine.
The Buddha is said to have been “a peerless charioteer to tame men (Anuttaro purisa damma sirathi)”. What’s interesting about this statement is that while researching hemispheric integration, I came across studies showing that high levels of testosterone will thin the corpus callosum. Social hierarchy coincides with left anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortices activation. Meditation thickens the corpus callosum creating more neural circuitry between the left and right hemisphere, thus more right hemisphere activation. Meditation is a tool that ‘wires’ or rewires the brain. Hemispheric integration is key to empathy and compassion ‘and’ the stability of our species. We live in a left-brain dominate world. The current article “Onepercentophilia” (link below) really compliments the “Peace Among Primates” article, and shows evidence backed by fMRI scans. http://neuropolitics.org/
There are other articles from that website showing studies that link religion to left hemispheric activation and dopamine. IMO, ego is simply left-brain dominance and dopamine addiction. Studies indicate that higher reproductive output of the religious appear to be advancing the occurrence of the dopamine D4 receptor gene DRD4 in the human gene pool. It is further explained in the article “God, Dopamine, and 3-Dimensional Space”. http://neuropolitics.org/defaultfeb08.asp
That article compliments studies out of Wake Forrest University, explained in the link below – that religion is dopaminergic.
http://gentlemansc.blogspot.com/2007/10/mailbag-monday-edition-religion-is.html
Apologies for the long post. I probably should have just done a blog entry. lol Thanks for followup comment.
You have researched this so thoroughly I can hardly add to it.
I would only add that being human has become more and more difficult – as our philosophers and poets have been telling us. We need to concentrate on this, and ask ourselves what this means.