Resist Groupthink & Make Up Your Own Mind

“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.

stone labyrinth with moss and a ray of light


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.


Unapologetic Conversations on Religion & Spirituality

Introduction

It’s been eight years since I last blogged as The Naked Monk. I’ve missed it!

I started The Naked Monk to talk, listen, learn and share my ideas about religion—Buddhism in particular but also Roman Catholicism, which I grew up in. I’m not a traditional believer—in fact I’m not a believer at all, even though I was a Buddhist monk for eight years and, even though forty years later I still turn to the Buddha for inspiration.

My Journey with Buddhism and Christianity

So I’m no longer a Buddhist and I don’t identify as Christian. However, I can honestly say that the two historical figures who have most affected my life choices and my thinking are the founders of these two religions—Gotama and Jesus. I still find the sermon on the mount inspired. The suttas still trigger new insights. But to get to where I’m at today, I had to get past the formulas, the dogmas and the groupthink of both religions. I had to figure things out for myself.

Gotama‘s story brought me a profound sense of purpose not because he was the omniscient superbeing presented by traditional Buddhists, but because he was not. He was just another human being like you and me. The more you study his life and times, the more you see that he was on to something much simpler and more down-to-earth than the absolute truths of mystical Buddhism.

The Importance of Personal Exploration

I‘m surprised sometimes by my own thoughts, but I get energy from comments from visitors—especially hostile ones. I have an audience to challenge me! I feel the outrage when I question sacrosanct beliefs. That’s particularly significant because Gotama did not tell people what to believe. He worked with experience, not ideas, and encouraged everyone to figure things out for themselves.

This is what sets Buddhism apart from all other religions. It’s why many of us came to Buddhism in the first place.

Gotama and Jesus: Influences on My Life

There are literally hundreds of variations on Buddhism and Christianity, most of them claiming to be absolutely true. I think that would make Gotama smile. He explained how preconceptions, biases and opinions shape our perceptions and explained that we prefer to see what we want to see—not what’s actually going on. We deliberately shut it out. Wilful ignorance, he said, is why we suffer so much.

Shoulds and shouldn’ts play no role in Gotama’s path to freedom. The world is filled with well-intentioned people who believe they should be a certain way and yet find themselves behaving otherwise. Some admit it, but most can’t—they lock in their denial with guilt and shame. The idea is to let go of that sort of emotional baggage, not to pile it on.

Challenging Beliefs and Embracing Experience

I’m not just making this up. For eight years I studied the three vehicles of Tibetan Buddhism and the scholastic commentaries known as abidhamma. After returning to lay life I narrowed down my search to the earliest literature—the Pali Canon (named after the language they’re written in).

My colleague Stephen Batchelor has identified at least six different ‘voices’ in the Pali Canon—poetic, dramatic, skeptical, pragmatic, dogmatic and mythic. Putting the last two aside helps shine a much clearer light on Gotama the man.

There’s guesswork involved—lots of trial and error. To process the story I have to explore myself. I know that to accept it as factual is to render it lifeless, but am I interpreting all the meaning out of it? That’s what true believers say.

Conclusion and Invitation

I may not be a card-carrying member of any belief system, but I’m committed. Gotama’s life and times didn’t happen in a vacuum but in a historical context. How did this affect his decisions? His teaching? Not one of my teachers ever suggested it was significant even though Gotama’s central teaching is the dependent arising of all things. I see the man and his mission in my own way. Isn’t that what commitment means?

Neatly packaged answers to existential questions are useless. The only way forward is to accept them as unanswerable. We keep exploring, and here’s the place where I’ll document my findings and musings.

Please share and comment. If you disagree, or if you’re offended by my posts—speak up! I like a good debate, and I want to hear from you all.


Flying Free

FreefallIt’s strange how Gotama’s path to freedom became an organized religion—but then, Buddhism is a treasury of paradoxes.

It’s also a cradle of iconoclasts. How many owe a debt of gratitude to the very foundations they’ve smashed. For twenty-six hundred years the institutions of Buddhism preserved the history and pickled the words. Siddhattha’s human story was turned into trite formulas—noble truths, folds of a path, heaps of consciousness—untouchable arrangements of words that as easily bog you down in dogma as unleash your imagination. Yes, the paradoxes abound.

To be more specific, we owe a debt of gratitude to those Buddhists who work in the uneasy shadow of paradox, wrenching fresh meaning from dry words and usurping the local establishment.

It’s always local. There’s no monolithic Buddhism, just a thousand regional interpretations and communities, each sprouting its own its left and right wings. It comes down to the tension between the conservatives and the progressives, one claiming to own the original and the other claiming it can’t be owned. Gotama himself cut off his beautiful long hair and abandoned his family, driving a knife deep into the hearts of his loved ones. If he were around today he’d be trashed in the tabloids and trolled on social media.

Liberation must be wrenched from dogma

Liberation cannot be guaranteed. It must be wrenched from dogma, puzzled over like a cryptic equation until the simplicity is unlocked and you feel, “Yes! Surely, this is what he felt.” Somehow, it must explain his audacious claim.” Perfect enlightenment indeed.

One thing’s for sure. Breakthrough takes special courage—an outrageous leap of faith in oneself, one that cannot coexist with the certainties of any ancient and venerable tradition.

I’m Back

Change. Sometimes we choose it; sometimes it’s thrust upon us.

Caroline and I have just gone through a series of changes—chaotic and nerve-wracking, but on the whole, good. The result is that we’re in a new house, and I have a new office. In the midst of a world gone mad, all is calm here.

During that upheaval my work also moved to a new footing. Schettini.com has become a portal for daily meditation and a pragmatic online presence. I’ll be offering videos, streaming audio, webinars and online courses. Yes, mindfulness for the masses, I’m on the bandwagon now, but it’s more a widening of scope than a change of direction. It’s about getting to work.

The Naked Monk has continued to attract visitors in my absence, whom I welcome. My newsletter subscribers have for the most part remained. Hi there. It’s good to be back.

This website is more specifically about Buddhism: the theory, the politics, the scholasticism and the happenings. I’ll maintain my stance as a critic from a short distance. Every religion has its cast of players: conservatives like the Dalai Lama, critics from within like Stephen Batchelor and critics from the outside like The Naked Monk. I’m not any old outsider though. I’m an apostate. For eight years I strove to conform, rise through the ranks and become enlightened. You can question my motives, my approach and my goals, but I was just trying to do what everyone else seemed to be doing.

What counts is not what you believe but what you experience

Over time that didn’t sit well with me. I figured the Buddha would have done things differently, so one day I decided the best way for me to figure that out was on my own, away from the believers and the followers. By stepping away I honored the instinct that brought me to Buddhism in the first place: that what counts is not what you believe but what you experience—and how you respond.

The Naked Monk simply attempts to place Buddhism within the frame of the Buddha’s teachings. It’s a great exercise, for it makes you constantly wonder what the Buddha had in mind; you don’t get bogged down in one interpretation or another. Each Buddhist establishment has its own spin, which is fair enough, but the main job of every establishment is to defend its ground, and that’s not practice; it’s politics. Only those with no particular Buddhism to call home are really free to question.

That said, it’s scary to stand on shifting ground and good to know there are others of like mind. This blog has attracted such people, and for all of you I’m grateful. Please write and let me know your thoughts, your questions and especially your concerns. Let’s explore them together.

After Buddhism

After BuddhismFor the most part, traditional Buddhists nervously paint Stephen Batchelor as the bad boy of modern Buddhism, a half-baked misinterpreter who throws the baby out with the bathwater.

Unfortunately for them, he’s a highly articulate and creative thinker whose scholarship speaks for itself.

His new book After Buddhism takes after Gianni Vattimo’s After Christianity. Both books seek to interpret (some would say invent) their respective religion in ways that are sensible to modern readers. That means, quite simply, that neither author expects us to put aside our common sense.

Modern Buddhists especially need a Buddha who bleeds, weeps, ages and suffers like the rest of us, who is not a grotesque parody of saintly perfection. If the Buddha really exhibited the 32 major bodily signs described by tradition, says Batchelor, “he would be a monster.”

In this book, Batchelor explores his plainly relatable Buddha by highlighting the man’s conversations with lesser known contemporaries: bit-players who are almost entirely ignored by traditional scholars. The most educated among them, Doctor Jivaka, is very helpful to the Buddha’s community but doesn’t seem the least bit interested in his Dharma. Another, Mahāli the Licchavi nobleman, asks the Buddha to confirm that, “life is suffering.” This phrase is common shorthand today for so-called Buddhist philosophy and is recited by rote in ‘authoritative’ books. Significantly, the Buddha dismisses Mahāli’s simplistic notion, countering that life is “also pleasurable.”

After Buddhism is written for a modern world with no divine beings, that views metaphysics with suspicion and has little doubt that humankind is destined for oblivion

Batchelor upsets the apple cart of tradition and piques one’s suspicion that the doctrines of Buddhism are an institutional afterthought, a construct derived from, but not respectful of, what the Buddha taught. It’s no wonder the religious authorities try to dismiss him; and yet his influence grows.

In fact, Batchelor’s main thesis is even more revolutionary and mundane. He is of the opinion that the Buddha didn’t teach any doctrine at all; merely a way to let go of reactivity—though that’s hardly trivial. Reactivity is our animal mode; to transcend it may be the most pragmatic enlightenment possible.

Reading about the Buddha’s encounters with his contemporaries, one gets the distinct impression that Buddhism was invented after the Buddha’s death, just as was Christianity after Christ’s death.

Out of the unlikely hat of a 26-century old religion, Batchelor pulls a compelling and very relevant white rabbit

Batchelor is not just trying to stir things up. This book is far-reaching and constructive. It serves a deep need that’s rarely addressed: a historical evaluation of Buddhism; what he calls, “rethinking the dharma from the ground up.” It is written for a modern world with no divine beings, that views metaphysics with suspicion and has little doubt that humankind is destined for oblivion. Out of the unlikely hat of a 26-century old religion, Batchelor pulls a compelling and very relevant white rabbit.

After Buddhism is both a work of art and a demonstration of the Buddha’s artistry. By condemning Batchelor’s creativity, diehard defenders of Buddhist faith yet again make themselves look small and timid. By contrast, spiritual explorers with nothing to defend are buoyed by his insight and lack of pretense.

If you have any interest in the divergent stories of Buddha and Buddhism, this book provides a plethora of new perspectives. Like the Buddha’s metaphorical elephant, you can inspect them from many sides and get a  better sense of his life and times.

Will that be a complete, infallible rendering of precisely what the Buddha meant? Think again. No self-respecting Buddhist would invest in such illusory certainties.

Buddhism, or dharma?

Last week, at the Garrison Institute in upstate New York, on the banks of the Hudson River, I was reunited with an old friend. It was very good to see him, and also a poignant reminder of the passage of time.

Forty years have passed since we met in the rural hamlet of Schwendi in Switzerland. A handful of houses lay at the end of the road, which gave onto a small farm and a dense forest. Before one doorway, a group of shaven-headed, red-robed Westerners half-heartedly imitated Tibetan monks at debate, clapping hands and reciting definitions. My approach interrupted their exercise, and a bored-looking Stephen Batchelor jumped to his feet with obvious relief.

The mandate of that tiny community was to produce a cadre of teachers for Tibetan Buddhism’s spread to the West. I was joining them.

The cultural transition we grandiosely prepared for ended up being more nuanced and ambiguous than any of us expected. As I was to learn over the next few years, debate was hardly the right word for the Tibetan practice of mtshan nyid (definitions). It was a powerful learning tool and could certainly be disputatious, but it was quite the reverse of the free thinking that plunged our forefathers into the paroxysms of the Enlightenment. We were after a different sort of Enlightenment, and our attempt to replicate the medieval Asian mindset triggered a whole new set of paroxysms. Some of us acknowledged the fact. Others hung on to their timorous certainties, the prime one being the sacred status of all things Tibetan.

Stephen became one of the only people with whom I could freely express my doubts. On long walks through the Schwendi forest, and later on perambulations around Mont Pèlerin, we came to the same tacit conclusion: much of what we were being encouraged to do there was a waste of time.

Buddhism is embodied in books, rituals and institutions, whereas dharma grows in the heart.

This was blasphemy. We spoke cautiously of it to others, if at all. It was undermining my reasons for being there so, to be absolutely sure, I moved into the den of the lion: Sera Monastic University in South India. I’ve always had a reckless streak, and this time I truly lost my footing. My suspicions were confirmed and my desolation was complete. Just like other monks and nuns, just like scientists and politicians, Tibetan monastics may be driven by good intentions, but also by ambition, passion, rivalry and intrigue. They’re just human beings. I went to Sri Lanka and found the same thing, though I had fewer expectations, and so was less disappointed.

But I couldn’t let it go. It was catastrophic for my monk’s vocation, and I had to move on. That was thirty years ago.

Shunning organized Buddhism was a disastrous career move, but my integrity was at stake and I saw no alternative. I had to find a language, a voice and a vantage of my own, outside of any Asian tradition.

Buddhism is embodied in books, rituals and institutions, whereas dharma grows in the heart. My mission was to see through Buddhism. Could I really divorce the two or was I tilting at windmills? I knew what I’d learned, now I had to see what it was worth. If I could capture the imagination of a non-Buddhist audience, I’d be on track. The question was, how to express it?

Early Buddhist teachings helped. They were less structured and more colloquial than the later Tibetan scriptures. I read beyond that, though. Evolutionary psychology, biology and history turned out to be useful. Scientific studies of Buddhist brains, not so much. How do you measure meditation anyway? What I needed was to examine what the Buddha talked about without resorting to the stilted language of arcane Buddhism.

Some of my peers escaped into university, but that wasn’t for me. Academia makes perfectly intelligent people write very badly.

I went through a long spiritual vagabondage, and realized what I was seeking only when I found it: someone of like mind. Her name was Caroline and she was no Buddhist, but she understood dharma and she understood me. Validation is everything. Within months I was teaching, and my memoir was taking shape. We’ve been partners ever since.

In 2011 I eerily received an invitation to the Buddhist Teachers Council at the Garrison Institute. I have no idea how I appeared on their radar, but I went. My peers were welcoming, but I still didn’t fit in. It’s weird. I totally relate to what the Buddha taught, but can’t relate at all to traditional Buddhists.

It’s not what you believe that counts; it’s what you do

On the other hand, it’s always a pleasure to see Stephen again. He’s like a brother, and although we took very different paths we’re still of very like mind. Still, he somehow managed to dispense with orthodoxy without ever leaving the fold, and eloquently too. For that, I tip my hat to him.

I am no guru. I live a worldly life and am as conflicted about myself as my students are. That’s important. It’s a credential. What matters is not that I’ve reached some level of perfection but that I have an ongoing relationship with my imperfections. My demons aren’t gone. Rather, I’ve befriended them.

I teach by putting what people already know in a new light. It connects me with others and I love it. If life has a purpose, this is it.

My next book is about the Buddha’s eightfold path, and it’ll steer clear of Buddhism. It’s about dharma, not doctrine or philosophy. I’m borrowing freely from a new language devised by Stephen, which he calls “Rebuilding Buddhism from the ground up.” It’s audacious.

Just as he and I gave up Tibetan debate years ago, we also gave up praying to invisible demons and expecting to be free of suffering. Awakening is not a shattering breakthrough; it’s a modest acceptance of any moment in life, preferably every one. Also, it’s not what you believe that counts; it’s what you do. That alone determines your experience of life. You can’t follow in someone else’s footsteps; they’ll never fit.

I guide workshops and one-on-one, by Skype and in person. My old teachers wouldn’t approve of what I teach. They wouldn’t recognize it. Still, this is my respectful homage to them—for by hook or by crook I learned, and I thank them.

All of this swirls in my mind as I drive home from Garrison, north on Highway 87, where three lanes give way to two, and the traffic thins towards frozen Canada. I’ve lived here half my life and yet, just as in the land of my birth, I feel I’m entering a foreign country. That’s sort of how I feel about Buddhism. I’ve heard that this is the predilection of many writers — and I thought writing would help me find my way home….

I’ve learned to let go of who I think I should be, to savor life, to accept the woe and the joy in whatever measure they befall me. The freedom I’m after must be able to encompass them both. Else, what use could it be?