“There are no conditions of life to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees them accepted by everyone about him.” —Leo Tolstoy
Nothing unsettled my life more than leaving Buddhism. It was the only community I’d ever felt a part of, and although I knew with certainty that my time was up, it was years before I really understood why—there were so many contributing factors.
Today, with the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear. I had to get away from the groupthink. The price of belonging was to believe what everyone else believed, and it had been getting harder and harder to know my own thoughts.
The Perplexing Wisdom of Gotama
At first I’d found the community comforting—all I had to do was follow along—but everything started to change when I heard what Gotama told the people of Kesamutti, “It is fitting for you to be perplexed, it is fitting for you to be in doubt.” He went on:
“Do not go by oral traditions, by lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of scriptures, by logical reasoning, by inferential reasoning, by reflection on reasons, by the acceptance of a view after pondering it, by the seeming competence of the speaker, or because you think, ‘That wanderer is my guru.’”
Does this mean, “Don’t join a religion?” How do you follow someone who suggests you follow no one? And if we’re all deluded, as he also suggests, how are we supposed to think for ourselves? Thinking entirely for yourself leads to wrong conclusions, intellectual overload, confusion, disrespect for expertise, intellectual isolation and arrogance.
The answer lies in the next bit:
“When you know for yourselves, ‘These things are blameable; these things are censured by the wise; these things, if undertaken and practiced, lead to harm and suffering,’ then you will let go of them.”
The Importance of Direct Experience
Rather than “thinking for yourselves” he talks about “knowing for yourselves.” No matter how much you think about something and believe it to be true, knowing it is different. Even centuries-old scientific discoveries can be disproven, but when you see that the road ahead is clear or witness the mental patterns that undermine your own happiness, you act on that knowledge. It‘s not theory. This sort of direct knowledge depends on immediate experience and sensory evidence. The state of your body, how you carry tension, how you respond to daily events, what moods you project in body language, facial expression and manner—all reflect your emotional states and the thoughts they trigger. Everything else is just cogitating, guessing, projecting, imagining and made-up. The way to fully know what is “wholesome, blameless and praised by the wise,” is to live it.
So if you start to let go of your reactive habits and become more compassionate you’ll notice that you communicate better—you’ll open up, take more risks. The most effective way to learn not to touch a hot stove is to touch the hot stove. It’s a visceral lesson.
That’s why it doesn’t matter how much you polish your Buddha statues, how many prayers you recite, how much philosophy you debate—if you’re not learning from your own experience, nothing’s changing. Regular body scans are soothing, but the idea that they’ll lead to awakening is magical thinking. Those scans are just practice—a reminder to keep digging, to keep connecting physical sensations to feelings and thoughts, to see causes and consequences as they play out—to know yourself deeply and immediately.
Learning Through Experience
Gotama spoke to the Kasamuttis like this for a reason. Their land had been overrun by dozens of spiritual teachers and their disciples, each one disclaiming all the others, every one of them proclaiming their own theories of life, death and what comes next.
“How to choose?” they asked him.
“Don’t,” he said.
I always imagine him smiling at this point—challenging them to drop the shiny spiritual baubles back in the box and recall their mortality.
So what is the path? What is dhamma? And what about sangha—community?
The Community Paradox
To work in a community without acknowledging the potential for groupthink means denying the fundamental human need to belong, and the mental contortions it leads to. In any organisation—business, political, social or religious—the pressure to conform is a constant threat to critical thinking and good decision-making. Everyone pulling together creates immense strength, but that sort of strength can be rigid. And as much as we love to think of Buddhism as scientific, objective and evidence-based, it too can be a cult. Even scientists are human—ambitious, competitive, envious, biased, defensive. No matter how smart you might be, being fully intelligent means also taking the time to manage your emotions and the social space they create around you.
Weighing & Letting Go
There is no absolute objectivity, but weighing our opinions, judgments, expectations and biases makes us less subjective. We take things less personally. Then, with practice, we glimpse the weight of our emotional baggage and our distorted sense of self. With those visceral insights at hand, letting go comes naturally.
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