Nothing To Be Frightened Of

As we reflect on the Four Noble Truths, impermanence, and the nature of life and death, I'd like to recommend "Nothing To Be Frightened Of", a book by the English novelist Julian Barnes (author of ten novels including "Arthur & George", "Flaubert's Parrot", "A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters" and "England, England"). It's a reflection on death and religious belief, with frequent comparisons between his own views (as an artist and novelist) and those of his brother (a distinguished professor of philosophy, and specialist in the ancient Greek philosophers). It's a lovely read in itself, but all the more remarkable for the way that he comes across Buddhist truths without any Buddhist background of his own (his family are non-practicing Christians).

Here's an extended quotation from the book, which is almost "pure" dharma:

You may have noted – may even have pitied – the vehemence with which I wrote ‘But I said that first.’ I, the insistent, emphatic, italicized me. The I to which I am brutishly attached, the I that must be farewelled. And yet this I, or even its daily unitalicized shadow, is not what I think of it as. Around the time I was assuring the college chaplain that I was a happy atheist, there was a fashionable phrase: the integrity of the personality. This is what, amateurs of our own existence, we believe in, don’t we? That the child is father, or mother, to the man, or woman; that slowly but inevitably we become ourselves, and that this self will have an outline, a clarity, an identifiability, an integrity. Through life we construct and achieve a unique character, one in which we hope to be allowed to die.

But the brain mappers who have penetrated our cerebral secrets, who lay it all out in vivid colours, who can follow the pulsings of thought and emotion, tell us that there is no one at home. There is no ghost in the machine. The brain, as one neuropsychologist puts it, is no more or less than ‘a lump of meat’ (not what I call meat – but then I am unsound on offal). I, or even I, do not produce thoughts; thoughts produce me. The brain mappers, peer and pore as they may, can only conclude ‘there is no “self-stuff” to be located’. And so our notion of a persisting self or ego or I or I – let alone a locatable one – is another illusion we live by. Ego Theory – on which we have survived so long and so naturally – is better replaced by Bundle Theory. The notion of the central submarine captain, the organizer in charge of the events of his or her life, must surrender to the notion that we are a mere sequence of brain events, bound together by certain causal connections. To put it in a final and disheartening (if literary) way: that ‘I’ of which we are so fond properly exists only in grammar.

Extremism with a buzz-cut and tattoos

Why do things happen to us in life?  There are 3 positions you could take on this question:

1) It's controlled or predetermined by a higher power, such as God or fate

2) It's random, and we're all part of a giant cosmic lottery

3) It's causal, so we reap what we sow - there are 'causes' for all the 'effects' in our life, even though the relationship between cause and effect is too complex for us to ever understand it in its entirety

The ancient Indian philosophers - the Hindus, Buddhists and Jains - termed the first two 'eternalism' and 'nihilism' respectively.  These are both seen as 'extreme views', and much of Indian philosophy was about establishing why extreme views are a bad thing, and how to build a middle way between these two - the Madhyamika.  The philosophy of the middle way rejects the two extreme views of eternalism and nihilism, and accepts the third position of interdependence, which is at the heart of how Buddhists explain why things happen in the world.  

But although this debate was settled many centuries ago in India, at least at a philosophical level, it doesn't seem to have made much difference to the way we live our lives.  For most of us, either we haven't thought much about it, or else our actions don't line up with our professed beliefs. Meanwhile, extreme views continue to spread like invasive species in an unsuspecting and defenceless ecosystem, and many people actually take pride in holding such beliefs. Sam Harris has clearly set out how religious extremism has led to great human suffering and death from religious wars over the years, and this terrible legacy continues today with the nightmare unfolding right now in Gaza.  You might think we'd be ready to scream 'enough is enough'.  But the popularity of extremism continues.

And now we have a new representative here in the Pacific North West. In the article "Who Would Jesus Smack Down", The New York Times profiles Mark Driscoll, the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, a megachurch which draws 7,600 people weekly. He's got "fashionably distressed jeans and a taste for indie rock", and his churches are filled with worshippers - and staff - sporting buzz-cuts and tattoos.  He's out to make Calvinism cool.  And if, like me, you're not up on your Calvinist theology, that means:

"you are not captain of your soul or master of your fate but a depraved worm whose hard work and good deeds will get you nowhere, because God marked you for heaven or condemned you to hell before the beginning of time"

Extreme views, anyone? And it's no surprise that these views don't lead naturally to compassion in your meditation or your action. Driscoll feels that the American church has transformed Jesus into “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ,” a “neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy of pop culture that . . . would never talk about sin or send anyone to hell.” Not exactly HH The Dalai Lama.