"Thinking about Buddhism"

I'm reading a book by Steve Hagen, bestselling author and renowned Zen teacher, titled, “Buddhism Is Not What You Think”.  The basic theme, which I have seen before in Buddhist writings, is that the raw data you receive through your primary senses is “Truth”.  After you apply thought to the data, you have corrupted the Truth with your thoughts and previous life experiences and you no longer have Truth.  That is true, but if pure perception were how you observed the world and went no further, you would not be able to draw any meaningful information from your perceptions.  A simple example of this would be the page you are now reading.  The raw data, without thought applied, is black spots on a white background.  You have learned to interpret these symbols as letters, words, sentences and thoughts.  You deal with them in the English language.  The same thoughts would obviously appear differently if written in French.  So, the new data that you take in is affected by the previous truths (not a capital “T”) that you have received in your lifetime.  When I say the word “dog”, you may envision a Toy Poodle, while my mind’s image may be of a German Shorthair Retriever.  The individual’s interpretation of any word is based on their personal, previous life experiences.  It can't be any other way.  Oh, I suppose you could learn to sit still and attempt to only take in raw data and do nothing with that data.  I would rather water ski.  You don't accomplish more by water skiing, but I think it is a lot more fun.

The famous author and philosopher, J.R. Pirtle once said, “Life is what you think.”  This is a far more useful and realistic way to view your real world.  Life, to you, can be no more or no less than what you think.  Even if you were a fundamentalist Buddhist (in other words, catatonic) and only saw raw, unaltered data, that would be what you think.  A friend of mine, a professor at our state university, in reaction to Pirtle’s, “Life is what you think,” responded, “Sometimes I think that life is not what I think.”  My response was, “Well, then it isn’t.”

 

I apologize to you Buddhists for this blog post.  I should have written it sooner.  I have already made it a point to insult the fundamentalist Jews and Christians.  Fundamentalist Muslims do not require ridicule.  They do it to themselves.  But, I have held off on Buddhists and that is probably because they claim not to be a religion and they compose only about one percent of our nation’s population.  However, their eyes do glass over, just like fundamentalist Christians and Jews, when they state one of the gullible beliefs of their religion.  The Buddha knew and stated that he could not pass down his wisdom.  The Tao is an individual’s journey, not a group’s.  His followers often tinkle their little bells and try to shy away from the undeniable awareness of the concept, “self”.  Buddhists had better hold their nuttiness down or they will be classified as a religion.  I certainly can't blame them for trying to avoid that.

Comments are welcome, Old Buz (an agnostic who accepts any belief, as long as it agrees with his own)