I was recently discussing 'spiritual aspects of living' on various online forums. One group was composed of dedicated atheists, some quite bitter I might add. But to be fair to the atheists, I've known many a religious fellow that are just as bitter, if not more so, than atheists I meet. So just being 'religious' is not a guarantee of being at peace. Each man made religion contains perfection's as well as imperfections. It is up to the practitioner or end user to use the tools in the right way. The problem is not the wisdom that is defective. The problem lies with religious practitioners who are defective in their practice of this wisdom. The wisdom works - we don't work the wisdom. Many times we are too busy for peace. As one list member wrote, 'It took awhile - far too long, really - but I've finally found that one can find peace by simply being undisturbed." Peace is our birthright, if we are not destroying it by our own actions. In order to slow down enough to be able to use peace as a tool I needed to apply simplicity and renunciation to my life. I am not an acetic or total renunciate by any means, but I did have to let go of many peace destroying habits before making room for inner peace to enter my life. As we get rid of one thing, it make room for another thing to enter.
The online discussions based in bitterness brought up the question of "what guiding light do atheists use to be at peace?" Not much was offered in reply to my question. I got a few answers here or there. It seems whenever the discussion turns to 'inner peace' many of the people I talk with are silent, this even goes for the so called pious fellows such as Catholic priests. But, one fellow on the forum mentioned 'truth and philosophy,' as his tools - both of these being good answers for peace generation with proper application. Philosophy plays a big role in my life as well for providing tools to live at peace. I also supplement my spiritual path from many other sources as I will go into below. I am only interested in practical application of philosophy though and not bickering and arguing over the unanswerable. So, I prefer truth based discussions over ego based discussions where the truth gets overshadowed by rhetoric. As someone once wrote ... "if you don't know the answer then just say so."
I was at a philosophy symposium last year and talked with a professor about a teaching / mentor relationship he had with Ayn Rand. He went on to say how after a year they broke up the mentor relationship on a sour note. After I questioned the professor about Rand's personal life as well as her state of inner peace and happiness, I could see that with all her talents of 'smarts' she was bankrupt when the subject turned to peace smarts, contentment and happiness. She was ego based and not practice based when it came to peace generation. Furthermore, she not only destroyed her peace, but from the information that came out of our discussion, the then student's peace was disturbed at the time and it still sounded disturbed decades later as a distinguished professor and author. Academic smarts are not the same as peace smarts.
The branch of philosophy that deals with the study of ethics and virtue has also helped me along in life. What is virtue and ethics? Some authorities define it as 'excellence of the soul' or moral excellence. (Although the Greeks thought of 'soul and form' in different terms than say Christians think of soul. For example, the soul of an eye would be its ability to 'see' and whether this ability was good or bad would decide whether the soul of an eye had 'virtue' or excellence.) The concept of understanding virtue can be told in a story of the 'Ring of Gyges' or 'Myth of Gyges'. This story was taken from Plato's Republic and recounts how the shepherd Gyges finds a ring on a hand extending from a crack in the earth and removes the ring from the hand and puts it on. Gyges discovers the magic ring gives him powers to be invisible at will and then uses these powers to kill the king, rape the queen and take over the kingdom. As James Allen tells us in "As A Man Thinketh" - "Circumstances does not make the man - it reveals him to himself"
What is virtuous behavior in a flourishing human being? In readily understandable terms we can help define virtue for us from this story of Gyges and by asking ourselves the question, "What would we do if no one was looking or we knew we would not get caught?" No heaven, no hell, no karma, no police, nothing but us and our virtue? Would our actions promote our inner peace as well as the inner peace of others or would our actions destroy our peace and the peace of others? Virtue is not learned from the classroom, other than memorizing definitions. Remember, a fool can only say what he knows ~ it takes a wise man to know what he says. How do we become a success at living a virtuous life and really know what we say? As a lecture on Aristotle mentioned: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." We develop it by practice. Practicing 'excellence of the human soul' is how.
Beside the philosophical studies of ethics and virtue, a Buddhist practice is another good peace developer for an atheist. Buddhists are not required to believe or not believe in God, so anyone can make use of this philosophy irrespective of their religious beliefs or lack thereof. (I discuss many other options for atheists in an earlier post, "I am having trouble with Steps 2 and 3.") I've settled on the essence of Buddhism and that is what I work on and find much peace with this type of simplified Buddhist practice.
"The Three Pillars of Buddhism"
1- Practicing mindfulness and meditation to develop peace and self awareness of our own true nature.
2- Accepting the liberating wisdom of impermanence and practicing non-clinging and a lessening of craving and desires.
3- The development of compassion for others.
In addition to the three pillars, we can use the eightfold path to guide us. Within the three pillars and the eightfold path are a lifetime of practice. No need to get lost in endless debate and spend your precious time in idle talk that only serves to massage one's ego. Plenty of work to do right here, right now, unless we prefer to keep our minds distracted through our perpetual complexities we are so addicted to. We do need to give some thought of the 'right' way to live as the eightfold path tells us, so we should never try and be devoid of thought in our lives, but instead look for a balance and let thought serve us for once.
"The Eightfold Path"
1. Right View
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
How can you differentiate right from wrong? By peace. You learn what destroys your peace and the peace of others as well as what promotes you inner peace and the inner peace of others. Do you need a teacher for that? Or the Pope to tell you? Or just listen to peace as the best teacher?
The Five precepts are the 'commandments' more or less for Buddhists. Although you are not commanded to do a thing. If you wish to live at peace, then proceed the best you can - but it is your choice.
"The Five Precepts"
1. Refrain from Killing
2. Refrain from Stealing
3. Refrain from Sexual Misconduct
4. Refrain from False Speech
5. Refrain from the Use of Intoxicants
Once I am at peace, I can share with others about finding peace for themselves, which is the secondary reason I practice. I have no interest in practicing Buddhism for extinguishing reincarnation. These "fear based" reasons for being a Buddhist are not authentic or natural - the persons actions are based on fear or negative consequences otherwise they would not do them. My actions are based on inner peace and if I stray - there goes my peace - it is my choice. Remember what I wrote about above with the myth of Gyges? Take away the fear of pain of karma or hell and you have a different person? A truly virtuous life remains the same irrespective of such fears and is not based on them. I enjoy life and realize that due to natural law, suffering comes about as part of the process and I accept it as a fair trade off for the privilege of living, so I would enjoy any reincarnation if given the privilege. Buddhism helps makes this trade off of life and pain more in my favor by lending me support to live a life at peace. I do not practice Buddhism to earn merit for the next life - I practice Buddhism for my own peace generation in THIS LIFE.
I am not shy about benefiting from any religious path, I take from ALL of them without prejudice. My only requirement is that the religious or spiritual tool be one that offers peace - it always has to pass the peace test, this way it speaks of a 'higher authority' than just man made dogma - it speaks of universal truth. But, this all has to be done in balance. For there are many true things that are good - but done in excess they become bad. For, even though air and water give us life, they will also give us death when in excess. So always seek balance. The Muslims have a practice of praying five times a day to Allah. For those that do not know, Allah is the same God of the Jews and of the Old Testament that the Christians worship. The Muslims pray at sun up, when the sun is at its zenith at noon, when the sun is part way down in the afternoon, when the sun sets and when they go to bed. Even though I am a Christian - Buddhist and not a Muslim, I borrowed from the Muslim's prayer schedule to use as a reminder for my own prayers. If a person is an Atheist they can borrow the Muslim's prayer schedule to be mindful of "gratitude" in your life. If you do not want to develop a practice of gratitude, then what about using it as a reminder 5 times a day to relax your breath, practice mindfulness and bring your thoughts back to the present moment? When you have come to a point of gratitude for being able to open your eyes in the morning and being able to take a breath of air everything else is just gravy so to speak. Gratitude plays an important part with finding inner peace, just as being mindful of the present moment and being aware of anything that causes this mindfulness to wander.
If I could define the basis of my religion it would be that of peace. Inner peace is the foundation of it all, for we cannot have world peace without first being at peace within. One time a lady moderator on a Christian forum banned me for claiming that God is peace, telling me "you don't know who God is." Funny thing about the Christians. I am Christian as well as a Buddhist and 100% of the Christian forums have banned me, yet only 60% of the Buddhist forums have banned me. (Says something about the Christians and whether they practice what they preach? Reciprocity? Charity? Humility?) Why am I banned so much? Is it for getting in fights or flame wars? No...I get banned for writing about truth. When someone disagrees with you, apply the law of opposites to get at the truth. This removes the personalities and focusses on the principles and helps you see the entire picture. If God is not peace, then God must be the opposite of peace...turmoil and unrest. I prefer to believe God is peace and God is the authority on the subject of peace. The difference between an authority and an authoritarian is this. An authority speaks from a place of truth and such speaks as an authority. Whereas an authoritarian rules by fear and not by truth. For the truth stands on it own and the authoritarian stands on their ego. Do we worship a higher power out of fear for if we do not worship this higher power we will be killed? Sounds like the aliens in an old "Superman" movies that came to earth to tell us to bow down to them or else?
The Buddhists have a set of rules they use to determine what are definitive truths and what are not. This can also be applied to such questions.
1) Do not rely on just the person but rely on the doctrine.
2) With respect to the doctrine, do not rely on just the words, but rely on the meaning.
3) With respect to the meaning, do not rely on just meaning requiring interpretation, but rely on meaning that is definitive.
4) With respect to definitive meaning, do not rely on just dualistic understanding but rely on the wisdom of the direct perception of the truth.
Does God or a higher power need us to 'bow down' to a 'big ego' or does God need us to 'act right' to our companions as well as to act right to ourselves? Bowing down produces no peace, whether in the person that demands it due to an over bloated ego, nor does it foster peace within the person forced to worship against their will. But this is how man made religions work - they are run by fear, greed and ego. I prefer to be truth and peace based. Many think God is like 'Santa Claus' and must come through with their demands, just as we did as greedy children making up a long, impossible list for Santa to fill. This smacks of the ego based practitioner. The ego based person prays thinking they know better than God does. The truly spiritual based person prays for God's will and not their own, for if they truly knew better than God...the practitioner would be the God. Nothing wrong with asking, but always end such requests humbly with accepting Gods or a higher powers will with gratitude. Can you imagine if everyone's prayers were answered according to our self centered and conflicting demands? The world would be in real turmoil then. No, I prefer to make God peace and truth based and as such any action that develops peace brings one closer to God and any action that destroys peace brings one away from God.
Many time we violate the three branches of laws that govern us and constantly ask God or a higher power to give us 'hall passes' to avoid the consequences of our actions. Such prayer is again ego based, thinking we should have preference over the rest of the world for wishing to be exempt from our actions
We are all governed by these three areas of laws.
1 - Natural Law
2 - Divine or spiritual law (if you believe in spiritual matters)
3 - Manmade laws
I find that sometime spiritual practitioners neglect the natural laws that govern our bodies and suffer in this area from lack of living a balanced life. Some of us forget we are spiritual beings residing in physical bodies living in physical world and governed my both spiritual and physical or natural laws in addition to man made laws. We need some effort with spiritual work and some effort in physical work for a good balance. Some of us think we can defy man made laws as well as divine or spiritual laws. But no matter how defiant the person is...we all answer to natural law. We all bow to nature in the end.
end page 1
The online discussions based in bitterness brought up the question of "what guiding light do atheists use to be at peace?" Not much was offered in reply to my question. I got a few answers here or there. It seems whenever the discussion turns to 'inner peace' many of the people I talk with are silent, this even goes for the so called pious fellows such as Catholic priests. But, one fellow on the forum mentioned 'truth and philosophy,' as his tools - both of these being good answers for peace generation with proper application. Philosophy plays a big role in my life as well for providing tools to live at peace. I also supplement my spiritual path from many other sources as I will go into below. I am only interested in practical application of philosophy though and not bickering and arguing over the unanswerable. So, I prefer truth based discussions over ego based discussions where the truth gets overshadowed by rhetoric. As someone once wrote ... "if you don't know the answer then just say so."
I was at a philosophy symposium last year and talked with a professor about a teaching / mentor relationship he had with Ayn Rand. He went on to say how after a year they broke up the mentor relationship on a sour note. After I questioned the professor about Rand's personal life as well as her state of inner peace and happiness, I could see that with all her talents of 'smarts' she was bankrupt when the subject turned to peace smarts, contentment and happiness. She was ego based and not practice based when it came to peace generation. Furthermore, she not only destroyed her peace, but from the information that came out of our discussion, the then student's peace was disturbed at the time and it still sounded disturbed decades later as a distinguished professor and author. Academic smarts are not the same as peace smarts.
The branch of philosophy that deals with the study of ethics and virtue has also helped me along in life. What is virtue and ethics? Some authorities define it as 'excellence of the soul' or moral excellence. (Although the Greeks thought of 'soul and form' in different terms than say Christians think of soul. For example, the soul of an eye would be its ability to 'see' and whether this ability was good or bad would decide whether the soul of an eye had 'virtue' or excellence.) The concept of understanding virtue can be told in a story of the 'Ring of Gyges' or 'Myth of Gyges'. This story was taken from Plato's Republic and recounts how the shepherd Gyges finds a ring on a hand extending from a crack in the earth and removes the ring from the hand and puts it on. Gyges discovers the magic ring gives him powers to be invisible at will and then uses these powers to kill the king, rape the queen and take over the kingdom. As James Allen tells us in "As A Man Thinketh" - "Circumstances does not make the man - it reveals him to himself"
What is virtuous behavior in a flourishing human being? In readily understandable terms we can help define virtue for us from this story of Gyges and by asking ourselves the question, "What would we do if no one was looking or we knew we would not get caught?" No heaven, no hell, no karma, no police, nothing but us and our virtue? Would our actions promote our inner peace as well as the inner peace of others or would our actions destroy our peace and the peace of others? Virtue is not learned from the classroom, other than memorizing definitions. Remember, a fool can only say what he knows ~ it takes a wise man to know what he says. How do we become a success at living a virtuous life and really know what we say? As a lecture on Aristotle mentioned: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." We develop it by practice. Practicing 'excellence of the human soul' is how.
Beside the philosophical studies of ethics and virtue, a Buddhist practice is another good peace developer for an atheist. Buddhists are not required to believe or not believe in God, so anyone can make use of this philosophy irrespective of their religious beliefs or lack thereof. (I discuss many other options for atheists in an earlier post, "I am having trouble with Steps 2 and 3.") I've settled on the essence of Buddhism and that is what I work on and find much peace with this type of simplified Buddhist practice.
"The Three Pillars of Buddhism"
1- Practicing mindfulness and meditation to develop peace and self awareness of our own true nature.
2- Accepting the liberating wisdom of impermanence and practicing non-clinging and a lessening of craving and desires.
3- The development of compassion for others.
In addition to the three pillars, we can use the eightfold path to guide us. Within the three pillars and the eightfold path are a lifetime of practice. No need to get lost in endless debate and spend your precious time in idle talk that only serves to massage one's ego. Plenty of work to do right here, right now, unless we prefer to keep our minds distracted through our perpetual complexities we are so addicted to. We do need to give some thought of the 'right' way to live as the eightfold path tells us, so we should never try and be devoid of thought in our lives, but instead look for a balance and let thought serve us for once.
"The Eightfold Path"
1. Right View
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
How can you differentiate right from wrong? By peace. You learn what destroys your peace and the peace of others as well as what promotes you inner peace and the inner peace of others. Do you need a teacher for that? Or the Pope to tell you? Or just listen to peace as the best teacher?
The Five precepts are the 'commandments' more or less for Buddhists. Although you are not commanded to do a thing. If you wish to live at peace, then proceed the best you can - but it is your choice.
"The Five Precepts"
1. Refrain from Killing
2. Refrain from Stealing
3. Refrain from Sexual Misconduct
4. Refrain from False Speech
5. Refrain from the Use of Intoxicants
Once I am at peace, I can share with others about finding peace for themselves, which is the secondary reason I practice. I have no interest in practicing Buddhism for extinguishing reincarnation. These "fear based" reasons for being a Buddhist are not authentic or natural - the persons actions are based on fear or negative consequences otherwise they would not do them. My actions are based on inner peace and if I stray - there goes my peace - it is my choice. Remember what I wrote about above with the myth of Gyges? Take away the fear of pain of karma or hell and you have a different person? A truly virtuous life remains the same irrespective of such fears and is not based on them. I enjoy life and realize that due to natural law, suffering comes about as part of the process and I accept it as a fair trade off for the privilege of living, so I would enjoy any reincarnation if given the privilege. Buddhism helps makes this trade off of life and pain more in my favor by lending me support to live a life at peace. I do not practice Buddhism to earn merit for the next life - I practice Buddhism for my own peace generation in THIS LIFE.
I am not shy about benefiting from any religious path, I take from ALL of them without prejudice. My only requirement is that the religious or spiritual tool be one that offers peace - it always has to pass the peace test, this way it speaks of a 'higher authority' than just man made dogma - it speaks of universal truth. But, this all has to be done in balance. For there are many true things that are good - but done in excess they become bad. For, even though air and water give us life, they will also give us death when in excess. So always seek balance. The Muslims have a practice of praying five times a day to Allah. For those that do not know, Allah is the same God of the Jews and of the Old Testament that the Christians worship. The Muslims pray at sun up, when the sun is at its zenith at noon, when the sun is part way down in the afternoon, when the sun sets and when they go to bed. Even though I am a Christian - Buddhist and not a Muslim, I borrowed from the Muslim's prayer schedule to use as a reminder for my own prayers. If a person is an Atheist they can borrow the Muslim's prayer schedule to be mindful of "gratitude" in your life. If you do not want to develop a practice of gratitude, then what about using it as a reminder 5 times a day to relax your breath, practice mindfulness and bring your thoughts back to the present moment? When you have come to a point of gratitude for being able to open your eyes in the morning and being able to take a breath of air everything else is just gravy so to speak. Gratitude plays an important part with finding inner peace, just as being mindful of the present moment and being aware of anything that causes this mindfulness to wander.
If I could define the basis of my religion it would be that of peace. Inner peace is the foundation of it all, for we cannot have world peace without first being at peace within. One time a lady moderator on a Christian forum banned me for claiming that God is peace, telling me "you don't know who God is." Funny thing about the Christians. I am Christian as well as a Buddhist and 100% of the Christian forums have banned me, yet only 60% of the Buddhist forums have banned me. (Says something about the Christians and whether they practice what they preach? Reciprocity? Charity? Humility?) Why am I banned so much? Is it for getting in fights or flame wars? No...I get banned for writing about truth. When someone disagrees with you, apply the law of opposites to get at the truth. This removes the personalities and focusses on the principles and helps you see the entire picture. If God is not peace, then God must be the opposite of peace...turmoil and unrest. I prefer to believe God is peace and God is the authority on the subject of peace. The difference between an authority and an authoritarian is this. An authority speaks from a place of truth and such speaks as an authority. Whereas an authoritarian rules by fear and not by truth. For the truth stands on it own and the authoritarian stands on their ego. Do we worship a higher power out of fear for if we do not worship this higher power we will be killed? Sounds like the aliens in an old "Superman" movies that came to earth to tell us to bow down to them or else?
The Buddhists have a set of rules they use to determine what are definitive truths and what are not. This can also be applied to such questions.
1) Do not rely on just the person but rely on the doctrine.
2) With respect to the doctrine, do not rely on just the words, but rely on the meaning.
3) With respect to the meaning, do not rely on just meaning requiring interpretation, but rely on meaning that is definitive.
4) With respect to definitive meaning, do not rely on just dualistic understanding but rely on the wisdom of the direct perception of the truth.
Does God or a higher power need us to 'bow down' to a 'big ego' or does God need us to 'act right' to our companions as well as to act right to ourselves? Bowing down produces no peace, whether in the person that demands it due to an over bloated ego, nor does it foster peace within the person forced to worship against their will. But this is how man made religions work - they are run by fear, greed and ego. I prefer to be truth and peace based. Many think God is like 'Santa Claus' and must come through with their demands, just as we did as greedy children making up a long, impossible list for Santa to fill. This smacks of the ego based practitioner. The ego based person prays thinking they know better than God does. The truly spiritual based person prays for God's will and not their own, for if they truly knew better than God...the practitioner would be the God. Nothing wrong with asking, but always end such requests humbly with accepting Gods or a higher powers will with gratitude. Can you imagine if everyone's prayers were answered according to our self centered and conflicting demands? The world would be in real turmoil then. No, I prefer to make God peace and truth based and as such any action that develops peace brings one closer to God and any action that destroys peace brings one away from God.
Many time we violate the three branches of laws that govern us and constantly ask God or a higher power to give us 'hall passes' to avoid the consequences of our actions. Such prayer is again ego based, thinking we should have preference over the rest of the world for wishing to be exempt from our actions
We are all governed by these three areas of laws.
1 - Natural Law
2 - Divine or spiritual law (if you believe in spiritual matters)
3 - Manmade laws
I find that sometime spiritual practitioners neglect the natural laws that govern our bodies and suffer in this area from lack of living a balanced life. Some of us forget we are spiritual beings residing in physical bodies living in physical world and governed my both spiritual and physical or natural laws in addition to man made laws. We need some effort with spiritual work and some effort in physical work for a good balance. Some of us think we can defy man made laws as well as divine or spiritual laws. But no matter how defiant the person is...we all answer to natural law. We all bow to nature in the end.
end page 1
