Isn’t that why we have the Christian metaphor of the Good Shepherd? Someone who will tell us right from wrong, who will keep us safe from harm, who will tuck us snugly in the warm blankets of heaven on that last and most frightening darkest night of the soul?

Not all people are like sheep, though. There are a few who prefer – or stumble into – the role of shepherd. They are smarter and more intelligent than the flock they aspire to lead. Some of them aspire to the role of shepherd out of love and compassion for the poor sheep, who, by their nature, are truly helpless. Others aspire to the role of shepherd out of the delusion they know what’s best – at least for themselves – and will take the flock by whatever means they can.

All shepherds and hopeful shepherds have a message for the flock. But the sheep have difficulty discerning among those who would help them from those who would harm them. After all, they are just sheep.

Many people, like sheep, don’t have – or don’t utilize – the capacity to discern the truth and make skillful decisions about what’s in thier own long-term best interests and the best interests of those who share the pasture. Because, like sheep, they can only know what their immediate instincts tell them. And the instincts of sheep aren’t very good. Can a sheep tell when the butcher walks into the pen with a loaded rifle?

But we’re really not’t sheep. And it is possible to separate the good shepherds from the bad shepherds – if we’d really care to take a close look at them and listen carefully to their messages.

Is the message filled with compassion, hope, love, tolerance, and concern for the welfare of everyone in the flock? Or is the message filled with hatred of “the other,” fear that “the other” will take what’s “yours,” and intolerance of anyone who doesn’t accept the message? What’s the overall demeanor of those who would aspire to lead you? How do they live their lives – not just when they are in the spotlight, but when no one is looking? Are they kind, gentle and honest;  are they authoritarian, overbearing, and deceptive; are they generous, or greedy for money, fame, and power? Are they wise or deluded? Although it may take a long time and require some effort, it really isn’t so hard to discern the truth.

Providing truth is what you really want.

The photo collage is of some notable shepherds, some of whom are speaking to their flocks. Can you tell the good ones from the bad ones? In the picture are, in no particular order: the Buddha, Jerry Fallwell, Benazir Bhutto, Idi Amin, Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Anwar Sadat, Jimmie Carter, Menachem Begin, Mother Teresa, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, Rush Limbaugh, Nelson Mandela, Joseph Stalin, Pat Roberson, Dick Cheney, Aung San Suu Kyi, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Martin Luther King, Mao Zedong, Mahatma Ghandi, Barack Obama, Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, Dorothy Day, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jesus, who is shone once as the Good Shepherd and again preaching the Sermon on the Mount.

*This post was inspired by this story, sent to me by someone suggesting that Barack Obama is leading the United States down the same path as did Adolf Hilter lead Germany.

I’d always known from the way he lived he that he was religiously conservative. “Devout Catholic” is an apt description. But I was well into my adult life before I got a sense of where he was politically. He usually kept his political opinions to himself while I lived within his household – at least he didn’t discuss them much with his children. It surprised me to learn that his political views were so different from my own.

Perhaps my mother had something to do with this. Even though she also was steadfastly Catholic, there was never any doubt about her open-minded slant – however quietly she presented it. Maybe it was she who – in order to keep the peace – was responsible for the dearth of political discussion in the home.

Anyway, I’ve recently had a few conversations with my father about the political state of things. He’s as conservative in his political views as he is in his religious views. From our last talk I came away shaking my head in wonder: How can it be that he cannot see how wrong he is?

But wouldn’t he have similar thoughts of me? How is it, he must surely wonder, that my first-born son can be so wrong? How can he not see the danger in this liberal nonsense?

And then there are our divergent religious views. After he read my book, Mapping the Dharma, he said to me, “That Buddha was a pretty good psychologist.” Then he added, “I don’t agree with him, though.” Now there’s an understatement.

But this isn’t about me or my father, nor is it about politics or religion. It’s about being attached to views – any views. “A thicket of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views,” is what the Buddha called this ocean of opinions we so enthusiastically – and often angrily – navigate every day.

It’s so easy to get caught up in what we believe to be right. And it’s easy to let everyone around us know, not  just how right we are, but how wrong they are if they don’t agree with us. We want the world to be a certain way and it’s difficult to accept that others see things differently. It churns and churns in the mind. If we’re not careful, agitation and anger are the results. Even the most superficial disagreement is stressful.

The Internet with its World Wide Web is an unimaginably vast Thicket of Views. It can be a very good – and even reliable – source of news and information as well as a means of personal communication and honest discourse. It’s also the prevailing medium of disinformation, propaganda, and a channel for outright hatred. Through the Internet I can find people who will agree and sympathize with me. And I can find people who despise me and my views.

My father gets his news and information much the same way most of us who use the Internet do. He reads from websites that suit his tastes. So do I. Each of us has our ideas, our points of view, reinforced daily. That’s a problem. Not just for my father and me, but for anyone who has a view to cling to.

One of the websites I looked at daily (that is, several times every day) was TruthOut. It’s a compendium of liberal news stories grabbed from diverse but mainstream sources. Many of the articles would stimulate mental debates with a stereotypical conservative. With these debates I would sharpen my views, refine my logic, and undermine the views of my imaginary opponent. A the the same time I would tighten the grip on my own political or spiritual views and on the view that I am so smart and so clever.

But that cleverness is all in my imagination. And my views have no more substance than the bits and bytes that form the letters on this screen. A few taps on the delete key and they disappear into nothingness. After that discussion with my father, I deleted the link to TruthOut. Not because I’m not interested or don’t want to be informed. But because I do not need that kind of mental agitation. The politicians will do what they do regardless of what I think about it, regardless of how irritated I get with one side or inspired by the other. This has helped me gradually loosen my grip on a particular political viewpoint.

There is no value in being enmeshed in a thicket of views. But there is lots of value in being free of its entanglements.

Sheep liver, courtesy Wikipedia

The liver is a vital organ (you can’t live without it) that rests high in the abdominal cavity beneath the right ribs. Although it is not part of the digestive tract, the liver is part of your digestive system.

The liver, which is also a gland, secretes bile (stored in the gall bladder) into the small intestine to emulsify fats for absorption. A true multi-tasker, the liver processes every bit of food that comes into the body, converts and stores sugars, detoxifies all manner of chemicals, and secretes a number of hormones, particularly those involved with blood clotting.

The liver has two blood supplies. One brings oxygenated blood from the lungs through the hepatic artery. The other brings blood containing digested food directly from the small intestines through the hepatic portal vein.

The liver is easily damaged by overuse of alcohol and drugs and other chemicals. Liver failure can be a slow process that can go unnoticed for a long time or it can happen within hours. Eat the wrong kind of mushrooms, and, if a donor isn’t found within hours, death is immanent. Liver transplants have been done since 1963 and the procedure is one of the most expensive. The liver is the only internal organ that can regenerate itself. A new organ can grow from as little as 25% of tissue.

Note: For background on this series, please read the Introduction to the 32-Parts Project.

This is standard practice, I’m told. First establish brand loyalty through the use of expensive, high-quality ingredients, then gradually pull back on the quality to reduce costs. Most users won’t notice. Some users may discern a difference and try something else, but to those loyal to the brand it’s still the same great product they’ve always used. Quite likely their children will use it too.

I’m not concerned here about deception in the soap-making business or brand loyalty, but about change, truth, and discernment. Discernment – also knows as wisdom – is one of the ten perfections.

If my recent post came across as parochial, it wasn’t my intention. Although I do have my preferences, I have no interest in promoting one form of Buddhism over another. There are many schools and sects and points of view of how the Buddha’s teachings should be interpreted and how Buddhism should be practiced. How else could it be? Buddhism spread slowly through many disparate lands and cultures. Commentaries and other new texts were composed, rulers made edicts, and cultural influences and traditions pushed here and pulled there. Throughout the Northern and Southern Transmissions, Buddhism evolved here independently of how it evolved there. And Buddhism continues to be the object of pressures from without (e.g, China’s affect on Tibetan Buddhism) and within (e.g., the recent bhikkhuni ordination in Perth and the Thai Sangha’s reaction to it).

In the beginning, though, there was the Buddha. He taught one thing: suffering and the end of suffering. He discovered the four noble truths and laid out the eightfold path, which he declared to be the Middle Way to the end of suffering. The eightfold path begins with right view. There is a way to see and understand the world. If there is one right view that is a factor of the path, there must also be wrong views that are not. And the Buddha doesn’t hold back on what those are. If a person doesn’t accept right view, then the rest of the eightfold path has no meaning. If a person does not accept the four noble truths, then why bother with Buddhism at all?

I came to Buddhism because I had lost faith the religion I grew up with. I was spiritually bereft, but I didn’t seek out Buddhism. I wasn’t seeking enlightenment or any secret teachings of the mysterious Orient. Rather, I stumbled onto it. I tried meditation with the hope that it could help me get control over depression. Ignorantly, I didn’t see back then the significant link between meditation and Buddhism. It was only later that I discovered, first, how Buddhist philosophy would affect my thinking and, second, how Buddhist practice would affect my life.

What’s important – to me anyway – is the essence of the Buddha’s teaching about suffering and the end of suffering. My goal is not to have some mystical experience, but to experience the end of suffering.

With Buddhism there is no judge to determine whether people have been good or bad during their lives, no benefactor to grant rewards, no warden to mete out punishment. Rather, the results of one’s actions simply follow along. Good actions bring good results. Bad actions bring bad results. It’s the law of cause and effect. This is true for anyone, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, whatever. Being a Buddhist and being a good person are not mutually exclusive. Anyone will reap the benefits of acting in accord with what is right and true. So it doesn’t matter what Buddhist school or sect one follows. It’s a personal choice and, fortunately, one that no being, supreme or otherwise, will judge as right or wrong. Whatever the school, the Dharma is common to each of them, and the law of cause and effect works as efficiently as the law of gravity.

Discerning what is right and true, now that’s a challenge. Every religion stakes its claim on truth. Yet not everyone can be right. What’s necessary, for me anyway, is to take a look at not only what I believe but how I have come to believe it. There are five ways in which people come to believe the things they do and take them for truth. I may believe something is true because I have faith that it is, because it’s agreeable to me, because of tradition (brand loyalty?), because reason and logic tell me it’s true, and by accepting something as true after reflecting on it. In each case, there are only two possibilities about my beliefs: I am right or I am wrong, because none of these five ways leading to belief is a guaranty of truth. (Majjhima Nikaya #95, the Canki Sutta. Read my comments on this sutta and how truth can be discerned here.)

I adopted Buddhism for all but one of these reasons. Not having grown up in a Buddhist culture, I was no more influenced by Buddhist traditions than than I was by Maori or Eskimo traditions. But I have come to accept certain things as true. I could be wrong about all of it. Yet I have faith I’m not wrong. It’s faith that the Buddha knew what he was talking about, faith in the practice, and the example of others who share that faith that keeps me striving on.

I need something to believe in. Don’t we all? But this practice I’ve adopted is not just some other means to fill the time, some other way to keep me engaged with others, some other trendy “path” that leads to the same mysterious yet desirable destination called enlightenment or salvation or whatever. In the course of it all I have to determine for myself what I believe and why. And along the way I must strive to discern what is in accord with the teachings and what is not. The law of cause and effect is the only determining factor.

In a previous post I wrote about The Island: An Anthology of the Buddha’s Teachings on Nibbana, by Ajanhs Pasanno and Amaro. Nibbana/nirvana is a state of being that is often described as the deathless or the unconditioned. It is a state where there is no more suffering of any kind. It is the cessation of becoming.

As I understand it, the Buddha woke up to Nibbana, making a transition between one state to another just as a person transitions between sleep and wakefulness each day. The Buddha, however, remained in Nibbana until his death, and he was not born again into the cycle of life and death known as samsara. The Buddha’s awakening took six years of focused preparation (not to mention many lifetimes of perfecting the virtues necessary to making the transition from a bodhisatta to a buddha). The conventional expression of the Buddha’s experience is “enlightenment.”

There are two kinds of enlightenment: spiritual and intellectual. Spiritual enlightenment is what happened to the Buddha on the night of his awakening. Intellectual, or secular, enlightenment is what The Age of Enlightenment was all about. Ajahn Punnadhammo, abbot of Arrow River Hermitage, writes about the difference here.

Patrick Kearney, in his essay “Still Crazy after all these Years: Why Meditation Isn’t Psychotherapy,”* suggests that were it not for The Enlightenment, we would not be using “enlightenment” to describe the Buddha’s awakening.

“I have never been able to find any Pali or Sanskrit word which corresponds to the English word “enlightenment.” This word was selected some time late last [19th] century by English translators as a label for the goal of Buddhist practice because of its resonance with the 18th century ideal of the Enlightenment. The European Enlightenment was a movement which idealised progress, science and reason – the “light” in “Enlightenment” refers to the light of reason. In Victorian Britain, sympathetic English scholars wanted to present Buddhism in as favourable a light as possible, and they did so by portraying the Buddha as the perfect Victorian gentleman. He was presented as rejecting the priestly mumbo-jumbo of the brahmins (who for the Victorian English corresponded to the Roman Catholic clergy) in favour of a religion of reason and morality (Almond: 70-4**). The only thing that spoiled this picture was undeniable evidence in the Buddhist texts that the Buddha taught and practiced some kind of bizarre self-hypnosis or cultivation of trance states – what we today call meditation. The word “enlightenment” referred to a state of enlightened reason attained by the Buddha which, however, existed only in the imagination of Victorian scholars. Unfortunately the word has stuck, and with it the confusion.”

Assuming it’s true that the use of the word “enlightenment” grew from a desire to make Buddhism more palatable to the Western mind, it presents three problems. First, it shows how easily words can be used to manipulate public opinion. This is nothing new, of course. It happens every day in advertising, politics, and religion.

Second, it shows how words evolve and how, over time, they can come to mean something other than what they meant initially.

Third, it suggests that Buddhism is changeable, something that can be molded to fit the circumstances of its surroundings.

A teacher I know has said many times that Buddhism changes every culture it touches, and Buddhism is changed by every culture that touches it. This is undeniably true on the surface, but it’s not a justification for the manufacturing of a new kind of Buddhism, a “Western” Buddhism – which is what the teacher was endorsing.

Certainly there are cultural differences in the ways Buddhism is practiced in, say, Sri Lanka and Japan, because each of these forms developed in different cultures separated by space and time. So to assume there is just one kind of Buddhism is a mistake. To assume there is just one kind of Japanese Buddhism also is a mistake. “Zen” and “Buddhist” are not synonymous.

Even though people have found many different ways to practice Buddhism, there remain four inescapable truths regarding this human world we all are a part of. Without each one of these truths, Buddhism is meaningless. The fourth truth – a very precise path of practice – is not something that can be changed to fit our varied lifestyles and beliefs.

If it’s a mistake to assume there is only one kind of Buddhism, it’s also a mistake to assume there are many different means to realizing the goal.

As Ajahn Pasanno writes in The Island:

“There are many ways of practice but some of them may, in actuality, not accord with the teachings or the true Way. They may be popular or comfortable, but yet not be Dhamma [emphasis mine]. For practice to yield results, it must conform to truth or correct principle.” (p. 288)

The eightfold path – the Middle Way – is very specific. You either practice Dhamma or you don’t. The law of conditionality can’t be skirted. Living in a cloud of delusion has a major drawback: delusion. It’s not easy to discern what’s skillful, especially when people – teachers and students alike – tinker with meanings and practices to suit themselves.

“Enlightened” was used to (incompletely) describe the Buddha to Victorian England as one who behaved with reason, logic, and morality. But the Age of Enlightenment is no longer part of our social psyche. We – as a culture – are as far removed from reason, logic, and morality as social guides as those enlightened 18th century Europeans were from the Dark Ages of the 15th century. Instead, we use “enlightened” to refer to (among many other things) all manner of blissed-out states that incorporate – in the spirit of diversity – anything and everything spiritual.

And now, from the entertainment realm, we have the new sit-com, “Enlightened”. The situation evoking the comedy is where “a self-destructive woman…who has a spiritual awakening and resolves to live an enlightened life – which causes chaos at home and at work – after suffering a serious meltdown.” Entertaining, maybe, but hardly enlightening.

I avoid using “enlightenment” as the goal of spiritual practice (my spiritual practice, anyway) because it connotes gaining something magical and mystical (something so Zen) instead of achieving the simple end of suffering. This is my goal. I’ve had enough suffering. I am willing to work for it – I do work for it – but my effort is toward getting rid of rather than gaining something. Unless that “something” is understanding what’s really going on.

Coming to the understanding of reality, however, takes more than reason and logic, says Ajahn Pasanno. It “is direct and intuitive, rather than intellectual or rational, learned from books, memorized from others, or arrived at through speculative thinking.” (p. 296)

It’s not so simple as turning on a light.

*As its title suggests, this lengthy paper attempts to sever any imposed connection between Buddhism and psychotherapy. I don’t recommend it to anyone enamored with the idea of  a Western Buddhism. Kearney isn’t kind to a few high-profile teachers who seem to embody the idea.

**Almond, Philip. The British discovery of Buddhism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Just the same, I think this is a good time to reflect on the second factor of the eightfold path, Right Intention, or Resolve.

With the intention toward renunciation, I resolve to keep my needs to a minimum and to strive to hold in check sensual desires (with a special emphasis on the desire for things to eat).

With the intention toward harmlessness, I resolve to do as little harm as possible to anyone or anything.

With the intention toward goodwill, I resolve to avoid thoughts of ill will toward anyone, instead offering thoughts of kindness.

To see what others may be resolving (or not) to do this year take a look at the Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions and advice about how to keep them (even mentions meditation). Here’s a blog dedicated to the topic, but it seems the author gave up in mid-January of last year.

But “there” is a bit misleading. Nibbana is not a place nor is it a thing to be acquired. The Buddha himself describes it this way:

There is an island, an island which you cannot go beyond. It is a place of nothingness, a place of non-possession and of non-attachment. It is the total end of death and decay, and this is why I call it Nibbana.

The Buddha lived and died in India during a specific time of history. India is more than a physical location, though. It is a culture as well that incorporates thousands of years of Hindu mythology and cosmology that influenced how the people of the day viewed their physical and spiritual worlds.

Nibbana, during the time of the Buddha, was a term that had less to do with a spiritual goal than to explain a common occurrence. It was a matter of fact in those days that fire was bound to its fuel. One of the constituents of wood, for example, was heat. As a piece of wood burned, the two – fire and fuel – were bound together in an agitated state. When the fire went out, both were liberated from the struggle. The extinguishing of fire, which allowed for cooling, was nibbana.

Relative to Buddhism, the fuel that is in a constant state of burning agitation are the five aggregates that make up a human being: the body, feelings, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. The intention of Buddhist practice is to extinguish the bonfire of the aggregates, thus liberating the individual from all the interent pain and suffering.

Another example of the Buddha’s use of analogy regards his teachings on Three Fires. The causes of all suffering are fires of greed, hatred, and delusion (clinging, aversion, and ignorance, or a number of other synonyms). Suffering is ended and liberation realized when the Three Fires are extinguished through the practice and perfection of generosity, kindness, and wisdom.

One of the Ten Fetters that binds a person to samsara – the ongoing cycle suffering – is adherence to rites and rituals as a means to spiritual achievement. As explained in The Island, the ancient Vedic texts dictated that the brahmin householder keep three ritualistic fires burning day and night. The brahmin’s maintenance of the three fires was one of those rites and rituals that prevented spiritual growth. “Put out the the three fires,” the iconoclastic Buddha said. “By keeping them burning, you bind yourselves to infinite lifetimes of suffering.”

To the modern, liberal-minded person the imperative to keep three fires burning to ensure salvation may seem quaint and easily put aside. But the ever-present suffering of life is not so easily dismissed. Snuffing the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion is no easy task.

Persist is a collection of essays about art and the artist’s predicament written over a period of 30 years. Some of the essays have appeared on Peter’s blog, The Buddha Diaries.

For those of you who read The Buddha Diaries, you will know that Peter is a fine writer who offers valuable insights into the lives of artists as well as life itself. His writing is sensitive and compassionate and filled with the wisdom that comes with, well, age.

Writing is as much a creative act as painting, sculpting, or other form of art. Often – too often, maybe – publishing is seen as strictly a business proposition. Although the business aspect of publishing is important, there is also a creative aspect to publishing. The writer creates the manuscript, the publisher creates the book. As the publisher, I’m delighted to offer Persist to those who would read it and find its words inspiring.

Although the official publication date is set for January 2010, you can pre-order a copy from me at Parami Press. You’ll receive your copy as soon as I can get it in the mail.

Meanwhile, Peter has been working diligently lining up engagements to speak on the topic.