I try to avoid using words like “believe” and “belief.” It’s not easy, though, especially in making statements like: “I believe that…” It’s the same as saying “I think that…” or “It’s my opinion that…” or “I have faith that…” They all mean the same thing. Troublesome to me are statements like: “I believe in…”

Not too long before my mother died we were talking about my Buddhist practice. “What about the faith you were raised with?” she asked. By faith she meant Catholicism. I told her it didn’t hold much for me and hadn’t for many years. Then came the kicker: “Do you believe in God?”

I simply could not be as blunt as I am capable. I went off on a tangent about how belief in something does not make it true, nor does disbelief in something make it false. I was evasive.

The Catholic Church contends that the sole purpose of humanity – what the Baltimore Catechism referred to (if my memory of first grade is correct) as the “end of man” – is to “know, love, and serve God.” Human beings are different from other creatures, the nuns explained, because they are endowed (by God) with the capacity to carry out those injunctions. This presupposes there is a god named God who made the demand some 5,000 years ago, give or take. I’ve heard the many arguments for and against the existence of God, and I really don’t want to get into that fray.

What I’m talking about here is belief. Some would argue that God exists whether I believe it or not (and woe be unto me if I don’t!). But as I told my mother, belief is irrelevant to truth.

But it isn’t irrelevant to life. What we believe in defines who we are, influences our behavior, and binds us into groups. However we acquired it, humans have the capacity to think, to wonder, to question. We also have the capacity – and the need – to explain things and find answers to our questions. I don’t know where this need comes from, but I do know it’s strong. Historically (pre-historically, too) answers and explanations came in the form of stories handed down through generations. Stories became truths, and truths are what religions are made of. Religions require that stories-as-truth be believed.

Coming up with explanations of why things are the way they are – whether it’s today or 10,000 years ago – is one thing. But another question lurks in the dank shadows of the human mind. What happens when I die?

Although it sounds simplistic, the purpose of religion is to prepare one for death. Religion regulates our behavior in part by establishing a set of beliefs about how things are now in relationship with how things will be then. The law of cause and effect is as much at the core of Christianity as it is is Buddhism. Make God mad today, burn in hell tomorrow. Make God happy today, come to the banquet tomorrow. So be good for goodness’ sake!

Buddhism is not a theistic religion. It’s not an atheistic religion either. The existence or non-existence of God does not factor into the equation. But cause and effect is at the core of the teaching. Good actions bring good results, bad actions bring bad results. This is demonstrable in the here and now and can be extrapolated into the future. Also at the core is conditionality. Everything that happens in the here and now does so as the result of the causes and conditions that preceded it. And – most important – everything that comes into existence passes out of existence as a result of the causes and conditions that precede it. Everything. This, too, is demonstrable in the here and now and can be extrapolated into the future. I don’t need to believe this for it to be true. Denying it does not make it false, either.

Even though God is not a factor in Buddhism, belief in a life after this one seems to be as much a part of Buddhism as it is in Christianity. It’s not uncommon to hear sentiments  such as: “If I can’t become enlightened in this lifetime then I’ll just work hard to make a lot of merit now so I can achieve enlightenment in a future lifetime.” This strategy requires a belief not only in the concept of a constant cycle of rebirths, but that there will be a continuing “I” who can accomplish the goal even eons from now. The bodhisattva vow would not be feasible without this belief. True, doing good works pays off now, but it is not demonstrable that it pays off in one’s own future lifetime (except through stories). One must take it on faith and faith alone. One must believe it to be true.

I’m not even close to being well versed on the Pali Canon, but I know there are passages where the Buddha says that worrying over metaphysical events is a futile path that leads only to more suffering. Instead, he said, focus on the physical and palpable events occurring within the body right now. There is nothing magical or mystical about it. Do this with diligence and you’ll see for yourself the truth of life for what it is: a stream of events.

If I must believe something to be true in order to make it true, then I am just taking a placebo. The placebo effect is demonstrably real. So too is its opposite, the nocebo effect. I’m not knocking it, but a placebo is not the real thing. The Buddha compared himself to a doctor. And his four noble truths are at once the diagnosis and prognosis of disease and the prescription for the cure. Did the Buddha teach placebo? I don’t think (believe?) so. He taught conditionality and mindfulness. He taught suffering and end of suffering.

Buddhist beliefs come from the same place Christian beliefs do – from the stories we tell, stories that eventually become truths to be accepted on faith. But Buddhist truth contradicts Christian truth, which contradicts Jewish truth, which contradicts Muslim truth, which… So what is true? What am I supposed to believe? It all depends on what group I belong to.

And yet, I am not supposed to believe anything. If a am supposed to believe one thing or another, it would mean there is some entity that would demand I do so (e.g., God or the Buddha). Buddhism – as far as I know – doesn’t have such and entity. Nor does it have something akin to the Apostles’ Creed, which lays out a specific set of Christian beliefs. I am free to believe anything I want without recrimination from a supernatural being.

To believe is to perform an act of intention. It is kamma. And every action of intention has a result. We all live in this huge river of causes and conditions. And each one of us is a stream unto itself of causes and conditions. Some of them we have no control over. But many of them we do, because they begin deep within the mind with the stories we tell. Be can believe them or not.

This I believe.

The sutta begins as the Kalamas, a group of people who live in Kesaputta, approach the Buddha and say:

Lord, there are some priests & contemplatives who come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. And then other priests & contemplatives come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. They leave us absolutely uncertain & in doubt: Which of these venerable priests & contemplatives are speaking the truth, and which ones are lying?

The Buddha replies, “Of course you are uncertain, Kalamas. Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born.”

The Buddha proceeds with a lengthy answer that begins with a series of questions focusing on greed, hatred, and delusion. Is this teacher or that one governed by these three ignoble motivators? Does what they teach lead to harm or long-lasting happiness? The Buddha ends with some good advice on what qualities to look for in a good and noble teacher or disciple.

With this as background, I travel now from the small world of Kesaputta to the infinitely larger World Wide Web. It’s not a physical place, but a place nonetheless. Many of its inhabitants are like the Kalamas, full of questions and confusion. Many others are like the priests and contemplatives, full of knowledge and opinions and ideas about everything. Some of these “priests and contemplatives” are worth following, others, well…

Anyone with a net-connected computer has access to this world of seekers and sages and charlatans and crooks. Fifteen years ago – when the Web was not more than a few threads – I wanted to learn about meditation. I’d read that meditation may be helpful with managing depression. I wanted to find out if it were true. But I didn’t want to mess around with too much experimenting. I didn’t want to go down any blind alleys. I wanted to know the right way to meditate right now. I discovered, though, that there was a lot of nonsense out there and many blind alleys. A particular bit of nonsense involved sitting with my eyes closed, but moving my eyeballs up, down, right, left over and over and over. I tried it. Really. What did I know? Maybe it was the right way. It wasn’t.

I realized I was not going to find what I was looking through my explorations of the Web. I went to a bookstore and bought Mindfulness in Plain English instead. Even then I worried about getting the right advice.

But this is not about me or my practice. This is about information – particularly information about Buddhism that can be found on the Web. If I’m new to Buddhism, and I’m searching for information and answers about it, how do I know what’s reliable and what isn’t? Being ignorant of all things Buddhist, and I find myself on this blog or that website, for example, how do I know “Which of these venerable priests & contemplatives are speaking the truth, and which ones are lying?” How do I separate fact from truth from opinion from…

The answer, of course, is the same as the Buddha gave the Kalamas: study the teacher and the message in terms of greed, hatred, and delusion. But it’s not so easy, and may take a long time. Patience, after all, is an aspect of Buddhist practice. When the Buddha addressed the Kalamas he was talking about discernment. That is, seeing the difference between what is good and what is not, what is skillful and what is not, what is truth and what is not. Discernment is yet another important aspect of Buddhist practice. But I wouldn’t know that until I was well into it. It’s a quality worth cultivating, because without it wisdom is impossible.

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.

As she was commenting I had a sudden and strong feeling,… no, not a feeling, but an experience of anatta. Anatta is one of the three characteristics of existence (impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, no self). Anatta means “no self” or “not-self.” There is no self in the created or the uncreated, the teachings say.

I realized in that moment that what goes on in my mind is a fabrication, a mental construction of reality. What I think is not me, not who I am. The experience came and went quickly. But it was extraordinary.

Two questions have arisen. First, what does it mean? Second, how has it changed things for me?

Many thoughts have been swirling around the first question. My mind is a busy workshop where the raw materials of existence – thoughts – are assembled into what I think of as me. I am a creation of my own imagination. That doesn’t mean I don’t exist and the material world doesn’t exist. I do, it does. What’s not real is what I believe myself to be. A belief is just another mental fabrication, a thing manufactured by my imagination.

When my daughter was very young, we spent a lot of time together, some of which was watching televisions programs like “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Fred Rogers was a gentle man who seemed to understand just what it was like to be a child. He spoke to children as though they were not dumb little kids who need to be entertained, but little people with growing minds who had questions that needed answers. No baby-talk. No condescension. Part of his show involved what he called the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. Children love to make-believe, to pretend they are in a world of kings and queens and talking animals.

Little people grow up to be big people, and at some point they move from the neighborhood of make-believe into the neighborhood of reality. We flatter ourselves that we know what’s what. We know the truth.

But we don’t. We live in a world where we make believe that we are special, unique, in charge. Or the opposite. Stupid, mediocre, oppressed.

The ego (what did my ego look like before Sigmund Freud was born?), the ego is so busy in its workshop, building, building, building. I strive to make something of myself, to discover myself, to assert myself on the world. This is who I am, pay attention to me. I’m important.

What I saw in my brief moment of understanding was my own little neighborhood of make-believe. I also saw the futility of of trying to maintain the facade. My little “man behind the curtain” has been exposed.

How has it changed things for me? Today, I don’t know. I will attempt to answer that question next time.

Next week Ajahn Thanissaro, abbot of Metta Forest Monastery in Southern California, will be teaching at Friends of the Dhamma. His topic will be on the importance of developing a strong practice in concentration. Ajahn will base his discussion on parts of the Pali Canon which he has compiled in his book, A Meditator’s Tools: A Study Guide on the Ten Recollections.

In preparation, Sakula, PFOD’s spiritual director, read some passages from Ajahn Thanissaro’s book. She then gathered all five available copies and said to the 20 or so people in the room, “Who would like one?”

My mental response to the question went something like this: I want the book. I know I have the PDF on my computer, but I’d rather read it in book form. I want the book, but there are only five copies, and someone else is certainly more deserving than me. I want the book, but I don’t need it. Let it go. I let it go.

Meanwhile, Sakula was busy passing books around to those with a hand up. Apparently, there were several others who must have had similar thoughts to mine because only four people raised a hand.

“One left,” Sakula said. “Who wants it?”

After what seemed a very long time, I realized it was my duty (okay, I want the book) to take it. She slid it across the carpet in my direction.

“Now,” she said. “Just sit back and close your eyes. “Those of you with the book, how does it feel? Those of you without a book, how does it feel? If you have a book, can you just be happy with that without feeling that you got something that someone else didn’t? If you don’t have one, can you be happy that someone else got a copy without having any feelings of resentment or loss?”

Of course we’re all sitting in a room filled with people of goodwill. And, this is obviously an experiment. Don’t we all want to feel good about our participation, regardless of our response? Under such conditions, it’s difficult to harbor any feelings of resentment on the one hand or guilt on the other.

But Sakula wasn’t finished. “Those of you who didn’t get a book, raise your hand if you really wanted one. Those of you with a book, find someone to give it to.”

Meg, to my left, raised her hand. Without hesitating I passed my copy to her. Easy come, easy go.

Isn’t this the way life is all the time? Sometimes you get things, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes someone else gets what you want. And sometimes you get what someone else wants. Regardless of the situation, we’re conditioned to have the same subjective responses: I feel great when I gain something, bad when I lose something. If I get something you want (and I know you and like you) I may feel a bit guilty (but, hey, that’s life). If you get something I want, I’m bound to have feelings of resentment or envy.

This exercise clearly demonstrated to me that the conditioned responses are not the only ones available. I can find contentment and even happiness in the acts of giving, receiving, and letting go. As easy as it sounds, it’s not always that easy. The conditioned responses are deep indeed.

But, as one of our group so aptly put it last night, not objecting to the way things are is the basis of equanimity. With equanimity, conditioned responses don’t have a chance.

Incidentally, there is one more episode in the story of gained and lost book. Meg was the happy recipient of two books, one of which she passed back to me.

Creating wealth isn’t the point. It could be any kind of achievement, but here’s the point. Every morning Mr. Trump gets out of bed and does something. Everything he does begins with a thought but seemingly what he does ends up with more money in his bulging pockets. What does he think? What does he do? What does he say? To whom does he say it?

Now if I were a wealthy person like Donald Trump these questions would not be coming to mind now or ever. Rather, long ago certain thoughts would have arisen in my mind to say such-and-such to that person, make this phone call, go to this bank, and so on.

I’ve been told that the secret too success – one of them anyway – is to have a burning desire for what you want. Which brings me to another character who plays in my mind, one with infamous and ignoble history. Sirhan Sirhan is the assassin of Robert Kennedy. I think of him not because of what he did, but what he didn’t do. Many years ago, during his trial, I read or heard that as a child he had a dream of becoming a famous jockey – it was his burning desire. He didn’t become a famous jockey because he didn’t think the right thoughts, do the right things, speak to the right people who would have made that dream possible. His thoughts and actions took him in a much different direction, and the view from his window – if he has one at all – is  much different from that of Donald Trump.

Some people seemingly just know the right things to do to get what they want. Others haven’t the vaguest idea of what to do next. We see these people everywhere around us. Some are homeless. Some are our next door neighbors. They drive past us on the highway or maneuver their shopping carts around us in the grocery store.

The human mind, it seems, has infinite capabilities. And individual human mind, it seems, does not. Fortunately, I do not have a mind like Mr. Sirhan’s. I don’t have a mind like Mr. Trump’s, either. I’ll add a “fortunately” to that declaration too, but I can’t say exactly why. (I could come up with some Buddhist-y thing, but it would be saccharine at best.)

Over at thinkBuddha, Will has some interesting posts about free will from a philosophical point of view. He asks, “What if my actions arise not out of some kind of personal freedom, but merely out of various interacting conditions at play in the world as a whole?” It’s a good question.

Everything that arises, including thoughts, does so out of an infinitely regressive series of causes and conditions. How many of these causes and conditions do we have any real control over? Not many, but some. From a Buddhist point of view, the Trumps and Sirhans of the world are not much different from one another in that they are ordinary worldly beings swayed by the same winds of passion and aversion and delusion as the rest of us. In that sense, they share a common prison.

The eightfold path, as I see it, offers instruction on how to get control of an otherwise unwieldy mind to create the conditions to achieve not material wealth, but spiritual wealth. Daring to push the money metaphor further, spiritual wealth is the only currency that can buy true freedom and happiness. What to think? What to do?

Constantine's Dream, Piero della Francesca

A recurring dream-theme of mine is of trying to get away from something but being unable to move faster than a crawl. I need to run, but my legs are so heavy I must drag myself along, digging my fingernails into the pavement. What I’m trying to escape from (which doesn’t reveal itself) never catches up with me. It’s nothing more than a vague threat, but I’m fearful and unable to get away fast enough. I don’t know what it means.

I don’t know what any of my dreams mean, and I’ve never put much effort into trying to find out. I don’t know what I’d do if I were able to figure out my dreams – assuming they mean anything in the first place. Analysis of dreams aside, dreams are not reality. Reality is what reveals itself when I awake.

Or is it?

While meditating under the Bodhi Tree 2,500 years ago the Buddha had his moment of awakening. It was not an awakening from the dreams of sleep, but from the dream of common, everyday existence into the reality of the way things really are, unclouded by delusion.”Bodhi” and “Buddha” come from the same root, which means to awaken, to understand.

“Life is but a dream,” sings the the nursery rhyme. The Diamond Sutra – which predates the rhyme by almost 1,000 years – backs up the relatively contemporary refrain:

“So I say to you –
This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:

“Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream;
Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.

“So is all conditioned existence to be seen.”

Thus spoke the Buddha.

Diamond Sutra, Chapter 32

Contemplating the nature of delusion – my own included – I  see how delusion is the perfect condition for people to create such a mess of things. There is no better illustration of this than the national news – especially when it involves politics and religion.

Coming to awakening, enlightenment, nibbana, nirvana – whatever you want to call it -means transcending the dream of reality and the reality of truth. So I make my way slowly along the path, fearing only the effects of my own ignorance.

At my son’s wedding last week, which I wrote about in my previous post, I experienced a degree of restlessness and remorse. Patrick’s mother was there along with her parents and husband. Also there was my second wife, Patrick’s first step-mother.

Maybe you don’t believe in rebirth, but I am in my fourth lifetime – all within the same span of my 58 years. My first life included my childhood and everything through the end of my 21st year. Marriage propelled me into second lifetime. I expected it to last forever. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, right? Through good times and bad, sickness and health, richer or poorer (emphasis on poorer). Well, among other things, I suffered the disillusionment of happily-ever-after. That marriage’s ending was like a long, slow terminal illness with lots of pain and suffering for everyone involved – including our four boys.

Soon, I was reborn into another realm and another marriage. Through the lens of the Buddha’s teachings I can reflect on the origins of suffering and how the three fires of greed, hatred, and delusion slowly burn in the background of what appears on the surface to be a “good thing.” Once again a good thing ended very badly. The end of this life was different from that of the previous one, though. When the time came, I was prepared and eager to depart that world. I leaped into my fourth lifetime – which now begins its seventh year.

Although the details of my past lives have gone without description, I will say that the results of my bad karma are inescapable. It’s difficult to be in the same room with people I’ve caused so much harm to. At the wedding I was in my own territory, so to speak, but just the same there were moments of restlessness (get me outa here!) and subtle but genuine feelings of remorse for my actions.

The actions of my past are mine to keep – they are the only things I really own. The results are mine to bear as well. My intention in this lifetime – with full awareness of its impermanence – is to make good use of what I’ve learned and develop the skills to extinguish the three fires. I am certain my future rests in my actions now. I have a fairly good idea of what to do. And what not to do.

Understanding the law of cause and effect is central to – critical to – Buddhist practice. In the external world it’s easy to see how this may play out. If I smile at you when we meet, then I am much more likely to get a positive response from you than if I scowl. One could come up with thousands of examples. The point here is that I have a choice in my actions. That is, if I choose my actions wisely, I can influence what happens next. This is not speculation or something I take on faith. I have direct experience with this phenomenon in my own life. Therefore, I know it to be true.

Still, despite what I know to be true, I sometimes work myself into certain unwholesome mind states. Most often it’s because of something someone has said to me or something I have said to myself in the form of a thought. Either way, the result is a bad mood. Sometimes the mood builds gradually, other times it’s instant. Sometimes I can stop it before it gets too far. Other times the mental state gets to the point of no return as the negative, self-critical thoughts churn over and over, reinforcing themselves. Until the mood lifts I’m not very good company.

Through Ajahn Jayasaro’s words I got a clear understanding of the purpose behind practicing the Brahma Viharas – the four sublime mind states of loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. These create the mental conditions for spiritual transformation. All that is necessary is training the mind to overcome decades of unskillful practices. This takes place through the combined and ongoing practices of acting forthrightly in the external world of society and the inner world of the mind.

A platter of lamb kidneys, courtesy Wikicommons

My grandfather on my father’s side died not long before I was born. He had seven children – five sons and two daughters, not counting the baby who died. My grandfather died of kidney failure. He had a progressive and incurable genetic disorder called polycystic kidney disease. With this disease, the kidneys are slowly overtaken by fluid-filled cysts. The kidneys get larger and larger and less and less functional. Without at least one functional kidney – or an artificial means to perform the organs’ duties (dialysis) – the body cannot get rid of excess fluid and wastes. The body becomes more and more polluted, and, over time, it will die.

Genetics is a field of study I comprehend only slightly, certainly not enough to explain how this disease is transmitted from one generation to another. Yet I do know that if one parent has it there is a 50 percent chance that each offspring will have it, generation through generation.

Polycystic kidneys, courtesy Wikicommons

In this regard, I am a lucky man. My father did not inherit the gene for polycystic kidneys. One of my uncles and both of my aunts, however, did. And so did several of their children, my cousins. The uncle and aunts have had kidney transplants – but not after years of increasing suffering through various aspects of the disease. Several cousins also have had transplants. One of them had a kidney that had grown to the size of a newborn baby and weighed ten pounds.

Kidneys are paired organs, each about the size of a clenched fist. They are located in posterior portion of the abdominal cavity approximately in the area of and protected by the lower two ribs. The functional unit of the kidney is the nephron. Each kidney contains up to a million nephrons. Blood is filtered through the nephrons. Everything in the blood except the red and white blood cells is removed. Then – through the magic of chemistry, osmosis, and semi-permeable membranes – the nephron returns to the blood all the chemicals and water the body needs. What’s left behind is urine.

Not everyone is born with two kidneys. Sometimes, they are joined into what is called a horseshoe kidney. If one had a horseshoe kidney, one wouldn’t know it without some sort of definitive exam – ultrasound or MRI, for example. Or surgery.

One normal kidney is sufficient to do the job, which is good for those who are fortunate enough to find a donor for transplant.

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