A Series of Unrelated Obsessions
I finally got some time to fix my blog this afternoon… (It had been broken for a long while).
Since I last posted, I have lost interest in spirituality reading, and thus future posts will likely be about other things. Regarding Spirituality, I still sit in pretty much the same boat I started in: I see myself as an open-minded agnostic, respecting (nearly) all spiritual disciplines for their wisdom.
Tonight, I found this spirituality survey . Unlike some survey sites, this one is pretty unbiased and seems to have a wide variety of questions and answer choices. Although I think there is a lot to be learned from all the world’s religions, even the ones we consider “Mythology” now, it seems to have pegged my current spiritual state pretty well. Here are my results. How did you (my 1-2 regular readers out there) do? How does it compare with what you think you believe?
1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (96%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (94%)
4. Mahayana Buddhism (85%)
5. Theravada Buddhism (83%)
6. Neo-Pagan (83%)
7. New Age (78%)
8. Bah�’� Faith (76%)
9. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (72%)
10. Taoism (66%)
11. New Thought (65%)
12. Reform Judaism (64%)
13. Secular Humanism (62%)
14. Sikhism (61%)
15. Hinduism (60%)
16. Scientology (60%)
17. Jainism (59%)
18. Orthodox Quaker (52%)
19. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (48%)
20. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (43%)
21. Jehovah’s Witness (38%)
22. Orthodox Judaism (37%)
23. Nontheist (35%)
24. Islam (31%)
25. Seventh Day Adventist (27%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (18%)
27. Roman Catholic (18%)
Surfing around today, I stumbled onto a blog on MySpace. Here is what he says
:
...I’ve come to view [Christianity] this way. If i live right, do what the bible says, and die (which – face it, we all will someday) and there is no God … all i would of given up is a couple nights of partying… sex before marriage (cos you do get to have sex… all you have to do is wait…)
BUT…
If there is a God and he sent his son to die for us… and you havn’t lived right. do what the bible says you shouldn’t… Who has more to lose?
...
I hear this argument quite a bit, so I decided to take a minute to respond. Here is what I responded:
I find that sort of “Insurance” based belief to be a bit misleading. It works great if there are only two possibilities (Christianity or Nothing). But that isn’t the case. Wikipeida’s world religions category contains over 75 different entries, not including those in sub categories. Thus, in a purely statistical sense, by choosing Christianity, you have only a 1 in 76 chance in choosing correctly!
If your goal is to choose the spiritual path that will most likely help you avoid pain and suffering, you may want to look a Buddhism. Buddhism centers around focus on the present moment, and accepting what is, be it happiness suffering or whatever. Thus, the external world means little to the Buddhist. There are even Monks in Tibet who have gotten so good at being in touch with their inner energy, that they can turn off their sense of physical pain. (This is not conjecture, myth or just a story. Actual western scientists have researched this and have verified using brain scans etc, that they in fact do not feel pain unless they choose to). Thus, if the Buddhist is wrong, and a literal Jewish/Christian view is correct, I doubt it would matter in the slightest to the Buddhist if he were tortured in the depths of firey hell. He is no longer connected with physical and emotional pain, and can endure Satan’s torture as easily as you or I could tolerate a food we do not enjoy.
Now of course, this is pretty ridiculous. I’m not telling you to convert or anything. I am just saying that this sort of argument you’ve presented doesn’t quite hold up. If you believe in Christianity, have faith from the depths of your heart – not as a fail-safe against suffering in the afterlife.
Last Friday, my family and I saw the stage adaptation of Disney’s The Lion King. It reminded me of an important lesson. Of late I had taken on the philosophy of staying focused on the present moment, and not dwelling in the past or fearing the future. Although a valuable outlook, The Lion King reminded me that one should not focus on the present at the expense of responsibility created in the past.
Last week, when I walked into my local bookstore, they had a display paying homage to this being the Islamic Holy month of Ramadan. Seeing this, I thought it would be prudent to honor it by reading up on Islamic Mysticism, as seen by the Sufis. So I picked up The Way of the Sufi (Penguin Arkana).
Although the book was a valuable read, and at times very inthrawling, it was also quite difficult to proccess. Part of Sufism states that the right spiritual path is dependent on time and location. Thus, teachings that apply to one locality at one time, do not apply in another time or place. Therefore I was reading something that was telling me again and again that it was not applicable to me.
Although it was frustrating, I found the Sufis did (do) exhibit quite a bit of true wisdom. Their general philosophy of education as described above is actually quite intriguing in and of itself. It reminds me that applying ancient texts like the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, Homer’s works, the Koran etc. Are never going to be as applicable as they were to the contemporaries of those works. I would argue, as I believe the Sufi’s certainly would that such ancient texts are not devoid of meaning outside their original contexts, just that they should be taken with a grain of salt.
The Sufis also make extensive use of parable and poetry, often meant to misdirect the reader/student to learn something he doesn’t necessarily expect or even desire, while at the same time something that student needs to learn. This principle is well illustrated in a story I’ll attempt to paraphrase:
The Happiest Man in the World
A young man went to a Sufi teacher and asked him, “What do I need to do to attain true happiness? ”. The master responded that the questioner should seek out the happiest man in the world and ask for his shirt. Thus he would attain true happiness.
Eager to find the answer, the young man packed his bags and went on a journey to find the happiest man in the world. As he arrived in a new town, he asked the townsfolk who was the happiest person they knew. Each time he would meet someone, they always said “I know of a man who is much happier than I. He lives in such and such a place; seek him out”. For 40 years the man searched the world from town to town, from country, seeking ever happier and happier men.
Finally, the man’s tiring travels led him to a very old man, living alone atop a high mountain. Exhausted he asked the old man: “Are you the happiest man in the world?” The old man, smiled and replied that he could not think of anyone who was happier than he. Relived that he had reached the end of Journey and was near attainment of what he had sought all these many years he asked the old one, “Please, I was instructed to ask for your shirt so that I may be as happy as you are”, the man requested, “May I please have your shirt?”
At the question, the old man laughed a large and hearty laugh saying, “I’m sorry son, but I do not have a shirt. Can you not see that my chest is bare?”
Puzzled, the younger man studied elder. Not only was he not wearing a shirt but looking under the old one’s long beard and wrinkled, leather-like skin was the face of the the Sufi teacher who first sent him on the quest. “Why!, Why”, the man cried, “why did you send me on this quest, when I had known you all those years ago?”
The old man smiled a wide grin and said, “Because that is what you needed at the time. Now you are ready to learn”.
Reading the Tao, several of it’s short chapters seemed to speak to me as a programmer. I’ll quote some of them here and give my thoughts.
Chapter 4
The Tao is like a well:
used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
filled with infinite possibilities.
It is hidden but always present.
I don’t know who gave birth to it.
It is older than God.
In this chapter, the Tao reminds me of the ideal code behind a software application. Its code can be used again and again, as many times as needed. It’s objects and classes can be used in infinite combinations, making for very flexible software. The users can’t see the code, and may not even know its there, but it is.
The last two lines are a little harder to fit into this perspective. Perhaps this is referring to some of the old BASIC and FORTRAN programs my grandfather wrote in the 70’s and 80’s - Powerful and flexible for their time, yet impossible to maintain :)
Chapter 63
Act without doing;
work without effort.
Think of the small as large
and the few as many.
Confront the difficult
while it is still easy;
accomplish the great task
by a series of small acts.
The Master never reaches for the great;
thus she achieves greatness.
When she runs into a difficulty,
she stops and gives herself to it.
She doesn’t cling to her own comfort;
thus problems are no problem for her.
This chapter describes the ideal attitude for a programmer. In my mind, this passage speaks for itself. I’ll leave the commentary to you.
Chapter 64
What is rooted is easy to nourish.
What is recent is easy to correct.
What is brittle is easy to break.
What is small is easy to scatter.
Prevent trouble before it arises.
Put things in order before they exist.
The giant pine tree
grows from a tiny sprout.
The journey of a thousand miles
starts from beneath your feet.
Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
Forcing a project to completion,
you ruin what was almost ripe.
Therefore the Master takes action
by letting things take their course.
He remains as calm
at the end as at the beginning.
He has nothing,
thus has nothing to lose.
What he desires is non-desire;
what he learns is to unlearn.
He simply reminds people
of who they have always been.
He cares about nothing but the Tao.
Thus he can care for all things.
This passage brings me back to the Pragmatic Programmers who detailed such practices as
and just about every other chapter in their book, seems to speak this chapter of the Tao.
Overall Thoughts
A word of advice for all my programmer readers out there (I think there might be 2 of you): As a first step, put away that book on Ajax, Ruby, Haskell, the upcoming .Net Framework or whatever the latest language is and pick up some books that will help you become a better programmer in general. Second, at the same time, do not forget that programming does not exist in isolation. Be sure to expand your mind and spirit to other ideas outside of the day to day grind. I’ll end with a fitting stanza from Chapter 12 of the Tao Te Ching:
The Master observes the world but trusts his inner vision. He allows things to come and go. His heart is open as the sky.
Quotes taken from Stephen Mitchell’s version of Lao Tzu’s Tao te Ching. (c) 1988.
I’ve just finsihed my second, slower read of Lau Tzu’s Tao Te Ching as translated by Stephen Mitchell. While pondering this short but rich (as in cheesecake) book, I thought of many things that would make great blog entries. I couldn’t decide on just one, so here is a preview of blog posts to come regarding and/or inspired by this ancient writing:
Meanwhile, I’ll be starting on my next book. It’s back to the western world for a while with Holy Silence: The Gift Of Quaker Spirituality
If anyone happens to look at my “Currently reading” list on the left, you’ll see I’m reading the “Tao Te Ching”. If you are are programmer, you can get a shorter, and more specialized work based on it, The Tao of Programming
It’s hilarious in that “funny because its true” way.
Last week, I attended the rehearsal dinner for the wedding of some friends of ours. We ended up sitting with our friend’s priest and his wife. At first, my mind was a little conflicted with the prospect of spending a meal talking to a Christian Priest. On the one hand, I had had some bad experiences with Christianity as a child, and it had turned me away from the Chruch and spirituality in general for many years. On the other hand, I’d been doing a lot of Spiritual Reading of late and was eagar to get an enlightened Christian perspective. I set my prejudices aside and greeted the priest with an open mind.
Father Stace turned out to be quite wise and charismatic. We discussed his life as a Priest in training, my dabbling in Buddhism, Hinduism and “New Age” readings, his blog, movies and more. I mentioned that I had attempted to read the Bible a few times and struggled with its immense length. He recommend I start with a few books of the New Testament first, which I plan to do. He could somehow tell that I was interested in the more spiritual side of Christianity and recommended I read, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality. I wasn’t really enjoying the other book I was reading at the time, so the next day I went out and bought it. I’m quite glad I did.
In some of my other studies I had heard about Christian Mysticism and that it had some similarities with East Asian spiritual paths, but when I researched it online everything was a bit over my head from a theological perspective. The Mountain of Silence was a great change. Written from the perspective of a western academic who had studied other spiritual ideas than Christianity, it was a great change of pace. I won’t try to summarize the book, as I’m sure you can get an idea from Amazon, but here are some ideas that seemed to strike a chord with me:
Through reading The Mountain of Silence, I’ve gained a new respect for the Jewish/Christian tradition. Although I don’t plan on rushing out to attend church every Sunday, Christianity will no longer be absent from my reading lists.
The wider my breadth of spiritual knowledge and wisdom becomes, the more I realize that all truly enlightened people are all talking about the same things. Terrorism, War and Famine might be all things of the past if people learned from their truly enlightened spiritual guides rather than blindly following interpretations of “Holy” texts that happen to meet their worldly wishes at the moment.