The Journalist and the Buddha

The Mind Whisperer

I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice what a natural Buddhist Cesar Milan -- AKA "The Dog Whisperer" on the National Geographic TV Channel -- stunningly, beautifully, is.

On each episode, Cesar, a dog trainer, meets with the owners of dogs that are hyper-aggressive, hyper-anxious, or hyper-fearful. He interviews the owners for a while, and then he meets the dogs and notices their behavior -- barking at passersby, growling at anyone who approaches their food, biting visitors, twirling in circles, etc.

Cesar always starts by interviewing the owners for a while. Then he watches the problem behavior in their dog. Then he says a few profound things to the owners and does a few things with the dogs, and within a few minutes (edited down from a few hours of actual training) the dogs appear to have reversed years of bad behavior and are suddenly submissive, happy, and friendly.

Cesar always leaves each appointment telling the dog owners they need to continue their own mental training that they began on that day. The owners need to learn how to access their own natural ability to be calm and assertive, and to communicate that energy to their dogs.

If the owners do that, their dogs will get better and better and finally be completely cured of their problems. If the owners don't solve their own neuroses, though, the bad behaviors will continue.

Dogs, Cesar likes to say, always live in the present. Therefore, if the present is calm and peaceful, the dogs will be calm and peaceful. So it's up to the owner to become calm and peaceful.

"I rehabilitate dogs and I train people," Cesar says.

You probably have already figured out that the dogs' problematic behaviors always -- always -- mirror the aggressive, fear or anxiety of their owners's minds. So the real trick of Milan's technique is to convince the owners that this is true, that this is the real dynamic of the problem. In other words, that the only way to cure the dog's problem is for the owners to recognize and treat the problem in their own minds.

The instructive parallels to meditation continue. The way that Cesar calms down the dogs is a perfect demonstration of how a skilled meditator calms down the mind during meditation.

Normally, Cesar snaps the dogs out of their unwholesome mind-states with a single gesture -- a poke of his hand, which he holds like a jaw with exposed teeth. He applies this jaw-like hand in a single sharp jab applied to the dog's shoulder, or to forward part of the spine, behind the neck.

If the dog is super-aggressive, Cesar muscles the dog to the ground and applies his hand-jaw to the dog's neck with firm consistent downward pressure. He is in no way angry or fighting with the dog, he is just keeping the dog pinned down. Time after time, dogs that one second are barking or biting or spinning are sitting happily and quietly by Cesar's side. And dogs that one moment were in full-fledged attack mode -- their teeth bared and going for the jugular -- are on their sides, their tongues hanging out of their mouths, getting affectionate tummy rubs from Cesar.

This more sustained application of calm assertive energy to the dog is comparable to meditation, in which mindful awareness is focused, moment after moment, on whatever we choose to notice in the mind-body. Just as anger, fear and aggression soften and fade away when submitted to sustained mindfulness in meditation, so do Cesar's crazed dogs calm into a very obvious and visible bliss when he keeps his hand-jaw applied to their necks as they lie down.

To see this on Cesar's show is to see that the human mind wants to be trained, to be calmed, and to be submissive. Because each dog is a perfect reflection of a human mind, each episode stunningly demonstrates that the mind needs to be submissive to a higher power in order to be happy.

In most cases, all it takes to bring the unruly dog -- i.e., the unruly mind -- under control is a quick sharp touch of the hand-jaw. The passing poke to the aggressive dog (mind) is so lightly and briefly applied that it is nothing more than a reminder, really. A reminder of who is in charge, who is in control. This brief reminder -- this single moment of mindfulness -- is visibly seen to magically transfer the calmness of Cesar's innate awareness to the dog's mind and body. 

The Dog Whisperer vividly demonstrates the essential "two-ness" of every human being. We are mindful awareness, but we are also mind. And mind is like a baby. It's undisciplined. It's sprawling. The mind wants, wants, wants and it searches, searches, searches, and it cries, cries, cries. It throws tantrums when it doesn't get what it wants. But it doesn't really know what it wants, so it never gets what it wants and is therefore never satisfied.

The only solution is for the mind to be disciplined by the other part of us, our mindful awareness, which through its naturally calm and assertive energy bring the mind under control. Mindful awareness can focus the mind's unruly energy through brief reminder-jabs, and can calm the dangerously violent mind through more sustained moment-to-moment attention.

When the mind submits in this way, it lies down and happily takes tummy rubs.

Beautiful!

Concern for Everybody

Four paragraphs by a speech given by the author Karen Armstrong in 2007 pinpoints the problem that is the focus of this blog and  proposes a logical solution (my underlines):

"The modernity that gave us the freedoms we celebrate today has also been spectacularly violent, because our technology has enabled us to kill each other with greater efficiency than ever before.  This aggression is not only revealed in warfare but has even invaded a harmless activity like football.  The discourse of our democratic societies -- in parliamentary debates, the media, academia and the law courts -- is essentially confrontational and agonistic. Instead of simply seeking the truth, we also want to defeat our opponents.   It is not surprising that, when people feel threatened, religious rhetoric has also become belligerent, offensive and dismissive of rival viewpoints. 

"Religions are not inherently disposed to violence and intolerance. Every single one of the major world traditions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam, has developed its own version of the Golden Rule -- “Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you” -- and made compassion the litmus test of true spirituality. They have also insisted that you cannot confine your benevolence to your own group but must have what the Chinese call jian ai, 'concern for everybody.' The religious have not always lived up to these high ideals, of course, but at its most authentic, faith should be a force for reconciliation and respect.

"But this will not happen in an antagonistic environment. The religious are not the only people who have become dogmatic and chauvinist in these difficult times. Every single one of the 'fundamentalist' movements that I have studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is rooted in a deep fear of annihilation, convinced that modern secular society wants to wipe them out. In almost every case, this militant piety originally developed in response to an aggressive secularist or liberal assault. Sometimes this was military or political; sometimes merely the result of a disdainful media campaign. And history shows that every subsequent attack -- military, political or cultural --  simply made these fundamentalisms more extreme, because it confirmed their suspicion that the secular world was indeed out to destroy them.

"Our major challenge today is to build a global community, where people of all persuasions can live together in peace. If we do not manage this, we are unlikely to have a viable world to hand on to the next generation. Any ideology, therefore, be it religious or secular, that breeds discord and contempt or which distorts and denigrates the sacred traditions of another in order to defend its own will fail the test of our time."

Intentions

I've been reading Gil Fronsdal's wonderful book, "The Issue at Hand."

Time after time I get to a sentence, I read it, and I need to put the book down to let the idea sink in for a while, even for a day or two, before I start reading again. It's a terrific book -- and free from Gil's web site.

 

Here is one of those sentences that stopped me:

"I believe that a daily sitting practice is extremely beneficial. But I believe there is even more benefit in spending a few minutes each day reflecting on our deepest intentions."

If this is so, why aren't there "Intention Reflection Centers" as well as "Meditation Centers?"

Why isn't there more teaching on how we can most skilfully reflect on our deepest intentions, in addition to the great teaching we have on meditation techniques? In other words, centers that focus on Step Two of the Noble Eightfold Path (Right Intention) as opposed to Step 7 (Right Mindfulness)?

As I think about this, I realize that I've stumbled on the Theravada-Mahayana split.

 

The various Mahayana sutras (Diamond, Heart, etc.) as well as so many of the Tibetan practices (lojong, tonglen, "recognizing our fortunate situation," etc.) are basically about examining intentions which can be done either inside or outside the context of formal, monastic-style meditation. 

 

As the Buddha said, "What I call karma is intention."

This is such a powerful way to understand karma. The endlessly ramifying and branching and morphing nature of karma often makes it hard to grasp in a single thought.

But here we have the one point where a single person collides with karma: intention.

How extraordinarly useful it is to direct concentrated awareness to the rising and falling of intentions. Is there anything more powerful in this world than a person who is clear about his or her intentions?

Is there anything more useful to the world than a person who fulfills his or her most wholesome intentions?

When I am tracking my intentions well I feel truly steady, balanced and connected in love to others.

Gil chooses his words extremely carefully. And this wonderful Theravadan teacher actually says he believes there is more benefit to examining deepest intentions daily, than there is in daily sitting practice!

At the very least, this suggests it would be wholesome to start a "daily intention reflection" practice, or to integrate this central element, even by brief reminders, into every daily meditation session.

That's what we do, of course, when we say things like "We undertake this practice not just for ourselves but for the sake of all beings." In my weekly sitting group, we end each of our weekly meditation sessions by reciting these words. They've always meant a lot to me. But they resonate even more now.

Teaching My Way to Nibbana

Students in my undergraduate journalism class at Carleton College would never imagine, I’ll bet, that I sincerely regard each one of them as being ethically spotless, all-knowing, absolutely perfect human beings who at one point in the cosmic past was my dear mother.

Being a Buddhist carries along with it lots of interesting implications for classroom teaching. One of the more famous Zen adages says “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” That’s a handy reminder how to handle pet theories and received wisdom of all kinds. The Buddha’s prescription for ethical speech – that it be truthful, gentle, timely and tending to harmonize not divide – is another constant and helpful Buddhist teaching guide. But my favorite Buddhist maxim with virtually endless classroom applications is a Tibetan saying that resolves discordant situations in a flash: “Regard all sentient beings as equal to your dear mother.”

I’ve been meditating for 25 years. For the last ten or so, I’ve also studied a branch of Buddhism called Theravada, which is based in Southeast Asia and uses Buddhism’s primary text – the Pali Canon – as its main source. The Pali Canon comprises the closest existing record of the Buddha’s actual sermons, stories, discourses on psychology, and rules for monks. I run a weekly meditation group at my home and practice “vipassana” or “insight meditation” every day. The aim of insight meditation is to investigate reality as it is experienced in the body and mind in the present moment.

Aside from regarding students as my dear mother, Buddhism influences my teaching in three main ways. The first is that I consciously try to learn good teaching techniques from the Buddha, who is sometimes called “The Great Teacher.” He is certainly the best teacher I’ve ever had. Second, I apply in my classrooms an approach to truth-finding that I’ve learned in meditation and Buddhist scriptural study.  Third, as a result of my Buddhist experience, I treat my classroom as a laboratory for an applied ethics of compassion. By compassion, I don’t refer to the “sorrow and sympathy” dictionary definition. Rather, the Buddhist tradition of compassion, or “karuna,” defines compassion as a virtuous mental state that is capable of nurture and cultivation, and which is the root of all morality and ethical action.

In seeing the Buddha as a model teacher, I join an ancient tradition. The Buddha often stressed that he was not a God or any kind of divine being, but rather was a human being who discovered a set of cosmic truths which he then taught to others. He saw himself as a teacher above all. Records and commentaries on the Buddha’s life are rich in descriptions of his ability to teach the dharma in many ways – by stories, parables, allegories, discourses, sermons, logic, argument and analysis – always choosing one or another form depending on the circumstance and the capacity of his student.

The Buddha’s having chosen the life of a teacher is itself an inspiration to me as an aspiring teacher. It speaks to teaching as a vital activity connecting many dimensions – personal, civic, spiritual, ethical, practical. Through the Buddha’s personal example I understand how skilful teaching facilitates harmony across all these spheres. Seen this way, teaching is not simply about the education of individuals in areas of expertise. More fundamentally, it’s about the making and healing of communities, the forging of trust and friendships, and the support of the poor, the weak, and all of those who suffer.

An often-quoted Buddhist scripture, the Kalama Sutta, forms the second main source of Buddhist inspiration for my teaching. Sometimes called the Buddha’s Charter of Free Inquiry, it tells the story of a group of villagers who belong to the Kalama tribe. The Kalamas are vexed by a constant procession of monks, priests, and yogis who traipse through their town, each espousing a universal doctrine while disparaging all the others.

“Venerable sir, there is doubt, there is uncertainty in us concerning them,” the Kalamas tell the Buddha. “Which of these reverend monks and Brahmins spoke the truth and which falsehood?”

To which the Buddha responds:

"It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' Kalamas, when you yourselves know: 'These things are bad; these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,' abandon them.”

Scholars love to cite the Kalama Sutta for its foreshadowing of the Enlightenment and scientific method – skeptical, empirical, rational inquiry.

As a teacher, I take a simpler lesson from the Kalama Sutta. To me it says that learning occurs only once students have verified the truth for themselves – within themselves and by themselves. It’s not really my job, in other words, to teach students what I know. Instead, it’s to create the conditions in which a very particular sort of magic – more an act of self-teaching than of teaching -- is given the very highest probability to occur.

Finally, a vigorous dispute in modern Buddhist circles gives me the fuel to teach my classes in a Buddhist-inspired way. The dispute is rooted in the interpretation of the basic Buddhist teaching of the Noble Eightfold Path – the path to enlightenment. Its name notwithstanding, the path actually divides into three main activities – meditation, morality, and wisdom. For some Buddhist teachers, Buddhism in Western countries focuses too much on meditation, as if enlightening wisdom is gained primarily by sitting on a meditation cushion for years on end. These critics of the “mainly-meditation” path to enlightenment – and I’m in this camp – insist that a full one-third of the Buddhist path to enlightenment consists of acting morally in the world through virtuous speech, virtuous action, and virtuous livelihood.

A famous scripture quoting the Buddha begins with the lines: “Virtue has non-remorse as its benefit and reward; Non-remorse has gladness as its benefit and reward.” The verse continues upwards, linking higher and higher states of being –gladness leading to joy, joy leading to serenity, serenity leading to happiness, happiness leading to concentration, concentration leading to insight, insight leading to non-attachment, and non-attachment leading to final liberation – nirvana, enlightenment.

The verse concludes: “In this way, virtue leads step by step to the highest.”

There you have it: virtue leads to enlightenment. I see the classroom as a place to practice virtue in this Buddhist sense – to try to speak, to act, and to practice livelihood ethically. I know that I can’t teach my way to enlightenment. But according to the Buddha, it’s a good place to start.

A Son of Minnesota Returns as a Worldly-Wise Monk

ROCHESTER, MN -- Jim Reynolds began his 40-minute talk to a group of Mayo Clinic physicians and health care workers last week by closing his eyes, putting his palms together and intoning an ancient chant in a dead language.

"I am of the nature to age, I have not gone beyond aging; I am of the nature to sicken, I have not gone beyond sickness; I am of the nature to die, I have not gone beyond dying,” he chanted to the group of doctors, first in the archaic Indian Pali language, and then in an English translation.

Jim Reynolds, you will have guessed by now, is a Buddhist monk. He is actually known now only by his Buddhist name, Ajahn Chandako, and he serves as the abbot of a monastery near Auckland, New Zealand.

His head is shaved, he never handles money, and he owns little more than his begging bowl, a pair of sandals, and the coffee-colored robes on his back.

Ajahn Chandako (the name Chandako means "one who aspires") is also a Minneapolis native and a Buddhist spiritual teacher with a growing international reputation. Last week, he returned to his home state to teach people how to meditate and to give a series of pithy, gently humorous talks in Minneapolis, Grand Rapids, Northfield and Rochester.

Graveyard Humor

"When I lived in monasteries in Thailand, the meditation halls sometimes had human skeletons hanging in them,” Ajahn told the group of 70 Mayo Clinic employees, flashing a mischievous ear-to-ear smile. “The skeletons hung there for everyone to reflect on, and they had little handwritten signs on them that read: ‘Once I was like you. And one day you will be like me.’”

A knowing chuckle rippled through the room. The health care workers absorbed Ajahn's graveyard humor as pragmatic wisdom – a useful reminder, perhaps, of nature’s ultimate primacy over all the powers of medicine.

At the end of his Mayo talk, an eager hand shot up in the front row.

“Could you show us how to meditate?” a woman asked.

So, for a few minutes, in a conference room in the middle of a busy Mayo Clinic day, Ajahn taught people how to close their eyes and summon internal spaciousness and ease by using only focused attention and wholesome intention – the channeled inner zeal to become disease free.

Broad Compassion

From a Buddhist view, Ajahn told the Mayo audience, illness is a profound opportunity for spiritual transformation.

“In the old days, if you were a forest monk in Thailand, it was almost inevitable that you would get malaria,” he said. “So when you finally got it, you wouldn't see it as something abnormal, but rather as a normal human experience and an opportunity for spiritual practice.”

When skillfully and fearlessly embraced, Ajahn said, illness offers a rare chance to directly experience the most essential truths of nature. While unwelcome and painful, such an experience naturally imparts an intrinsic wisdom that can replace deep-seated arrogance with humility, anxiety with equanimity, and narrow self-regard with broad compassion.

Rock and Roll

The story of Ajahn Chandako’s emergence as a leading Buddhist teacher encompasses an epic journey from a bright teenager with a passion for drums, to a globe-trotting wanderer, to a disciplined meditator in jungle huts, to the worldly-wise New Zealand abbot and global spiritual teacher that he is today.

Born and raised in Minneapolis and Massachusetts, and a 1984 graduate of Carleton College in comparative religion, Ajahn Chandako says his boyhood was a happy one. He doesn’t recall a particular leaning towards Buddhism, except for one thing.

"If I saw a photograph of a Buddhist monk, something went off inside of me,” he said. “It struck me hard like a gong. It hit the depth of my heart.”

Throughout his high school college years, that strange inner call took a back seat to typical teenage distractions, especially rock and roll. He was a drummer in several bands – in “The Generic Band” the musicians wore plain white T-shirts that read “Drummer,” “Guitarist” and “Singer.”

Last Fling

Social injustice and environmental problems stirred a strong desire to act in response, Ajahn said, but he was dogged by a sense of unreadiness.

“Even if there is sincerity, there may not be the wisdom to know what is helpful and what is destructive,” he said. “Increasingly, I began to think that at least I can clean up this little corner of the environment” – here he pointed to himself. “I could clean up my own mind, and my own behavior."

His first taste of the monastic life came on long meditation retreats after college at the Hokyoji Zen Practice Community in southeast Minnesota, under the famous meditation teacher, Katagiri Roshi. Those were followed by even longer stints as a lay meditator at a monastery in Thailand, where he was first exposed to Buddhist monastic life that was fully integrated into a society where monks had a firm and high standing.

Harrowing Journey

Nearly ready to don the monk’s robes, Ajahn decided he wanted to travel widely through Tibet, which would be impossible once he ordained. This remarkable interlude is described in one of the most beautifully-written travel memoirs ever penned by an almost-monk, The Outer Path – Finding My Way in Tibet.

The story describes a harrowing foot-and-bicycle journey to Tibet in 1987, long before it was easy for Westerners to travel there. The book combines gorgeous descriptive prose with a young man’s struggle to meet the demands of an overwhelming inner drive to undertake ascetic discipline.

“Although I’m traveling lightly, I’m still carrying too much baggage,” he writes one evening by candlelight in a drafty cave carved into the cliffs overlooking Lake Manasarovar in remote western Tibet.

Bright Lights

"Often I feel in the awkward position of being half-monk, half-adventurer. I no longer take things like worldly achievement, social expectations, and money seriously, but I’m still living a secular life. I’m beginning to think like a monk, yet I continue to follow old habits.”

Staring at the brightly flickering candle by which he writes, Ajahn reflects on the pitfalls of his adventurous life, from his rock-and-roll days to his run-ins with Chinese police and nearly dying of hypothermia in Tibet.

“An insect appeared, circled the flame, and dove in to its death. It occurred to me that I am not much smarter. Attracted by bright lights, how many times have I jumped into the fire and been burned?”

Within a few months, Ajahn had returned to his Thailand monastery, shed all his excess baggage, shaved his head, and turned in his shirts and pants and shoes for a few plain squares of cloth and sandals.

Outward Ripples

"I could have gone off to the Amazon and become an ecoterrorist, blowing up bulldozers that were ruining the rainforest,” Ajahn said. “But I knew that would potentially harm other people, and it wouldn’t come from a peaceful mind. If one is practicing meditation correctly, it naturally leads to a reduction in anger and selfishness and greed. It very directly affects the people around us, our family and friends, the people we know best.

“Ripples start to go out in unseen ways. Immediately, the idea that meditation is somehow selfish just doesn't make sense. It has immediate and far-reaching benefits.”

The Buddha, the Dharma and the Media

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin -- There is an old interviewing trick journalists use to  get people to say things far more intimate than they planned to reveal.   

The trick works when the journalist, instead of asking a follow-up question during the silence that follows an answer, instead stays silent. The compulsion to fill conversational vacuums is so powerful that people often blab intimacies they didn't mean to share.

That interviewing ploy is one of many ethical shortcuts I used as a reporter and editor in the mainstream press for more than twenty years, first as a reporter for The New York Times, and then later as a bureau chief for Bloomberg News in London and Hong Kong.

As the years passed, I cut more and more ethical corners as a journalist to get exclusive stories, to elicit juicy anecdotes and quotes, and to get my stories the best possible play on the newswire or in the newspaper -- preferably on page one.

Verbal Steroids

I became a serial exaggerator of social trends. Increasingly, I started defining every trend as ''new and important,'' ''widespread,'' or ''emblematic.''

My writing vocabulary was getting showy and meretricious (and a Happy New Year!), and I began avoiding humble but specific, useful words. 

I got hooked on such verbal journalistic steroids as ''unprecedented,''  ''in a dramatic new development,'' ''revolutionary,'' and ''raises new and troubling questions.'' I felt sheepish, hangdog and worse. But I kept using.

Sometime I'd get to the part of the story where I needed to type in these phrases, and I'd literally feel sick.

Was I really going to do this again, I'd ask myself?

Usually, I would. Because when I injected these particular words my stories and -- most important -- my byline shot straight onto the front page.

And that felt oh, so good. But where was the end to these addictions?

Extreme Reality

Of course, deeper ethical issues face the modern global journalist, language-wise.

The world is filled with violent words and actions that journalists must sometimes, of necessity, report. Sugar-coating reality would be an ethical lapse equal or even greater than occasionally exaggerating social trends.

The world is filled with realities so extreme they are literally beyond the reach of language, used at its most extreme, to accurately describe. But even straight and well-intentioned reporting of such violence, incendiary language, and extreme reality can kick the cycle of violence to even more violent rounds.

What morals should guide a journalist's professional purpose, reporting methods, and use of language in such a world?

In recent years, Buddhism’s doctrines on life’s purpose, human suffering, and ethical speech  have seemed to me to suggest -- as no other moral system I have yet found -- practical answers to such questions facing a global media.

Practical Morals

There is a spiritual side to Buddhism, it's true. But its most appealing trait to me from the beginning has been its straightforward and empirically-based morals. It asks not a speck of faith from anyone. Yet it offers a comprehensive and practical human morals of which speech is an integral part.

In this way, Buddhism seems tailor-made for journalism’s ethical, and increasingly global and multicultural, needs.

Indeed, in its relentless quest to observe without filter or distortion the nature of daily human existence -- the fact and flavor of the simple ordinary present, the living now -- Buddhism seems, in a certain way, quintessentially journalistic. 

In my early years as a journalist, I was happy to discover the world through journalism. My youthful curiosity and optimism carried me through those years.

My drive to explore the world more widely (if not more deeply) trumped the ethical questions that always tagged behind.

Ethics Codes

It's only natural, I suppose, that with age the question of one's purpose looms larger. You've only got so many days in life, and so many chances to direct one’s attention with positive intention and purpose. 

For a few years, I searched for an ethical system within the profession, or even from another profession, that addressed these concerns. Basically, I got nowhere. I found out that journalists don't like to talk about the moral basis of what they do, which is to use language. They are practically allergic to such a thing. That's got to change if journalism is going to evolve ethically and globally.

Journalism's moral obtuseness is enshrined in its ethics codes.

The specific injunctions of these guides to newsroom practice -- not to plagiarize, not to lie get a story, not to cause anyone harm, etc. -- are nowhere connected to any fundamental vision of human existence or morals.

That may sound like too grand a hope for journalism, but medical and legal ethics are grounded in this way. Why not journalism and the media?

Kant and Mill

By now, surely, the enormous impact of the media on global affairs is obvious enough to warrant thinking more seriously about media morals, beginning with the morals of journalism, which is the public service branch of the media.

Journalists wishing to go deeper ethically than their profession allows, as I did on my quest, traditionally look to Enlightenment philosophers for enlightenment.

In particular, ethics courses at communication schools teach the ''utilitarian'' ethics of John Stuart Mill, and the ''duty-based'' ethics of Immanuel Kant. 

Mill's utilitarian ethic calls for examining each case to determine if the greatest good is achieved for the greatest number. The Kantian ethic, by contrast, asks people to question if a given action would help or harm society if it was repeated by everyone. Could it be ''universalized'' to society’s benefit?

These approaches have great appeal because they define communication ethics as a matter of general human morals, and not of daily expedience.

Buddhist Media

And yet, how impractical Mill and Kant are!

Enlightenment philosophers, I discovered, ascribe superhuman powers to ordinary people. Can any single person reasonably guess, with any degree of accuracy, whether a given act of speech will result in ''the greatest good for the greatest number''? Or whether it could be ''universalized without harm?''

Since when could any being but a God do such a thing? Neither the morals of Mill nor of Kant are easily translated, in practical terms, to individuals facing daily life situations, much less to hyperactive, competitive newsrooms. 

It was in Buddhism that I finally found an explicit and practical morals of human communication. Since I discovered its doctrines a few years ago, my ethics thinking has centered around the question whether it might be possible to develop a new journalism based on such universal yet practical principles.

A journalism grounded in Buddhist morals would display two salient traits derived from its moral purpose and methods. Such a journalism would be:

1. A journalism of healing. Buddhism is often not classified as a religion because it teaches no theology, declares no divinity, and requires no faith. Instead, its doctrines revolve entirely around the achievement of a practical goal: “the end of suffering.” Nor is the definition of suffering complex or esoteric. It is ordinary everyday suffering, aches and pains, mental moods and afflictions, sickness and death. On a social level, suffering in Buddhism is defined as any harshness, violence, and division of the community.  A Buddhist journalism would therefore be aimed at helping individuals overcome their personal sufferings, and helping society heal the wounds caused by injustice, hatred, ostracism, and physical violence. Such a defined professional purpose would give the Buddhist journalist a measuring stick for each word and story produced: does it help overcome individual and social suffering?

2. A journalism of timely, truthful, helpful speech. A Buddhist journalism would need tools and materials adequate to its healing purpose. The Buddhist “Right Speech” doctrine provides many of them. Right Speech sits midway along the “Noble Eightfold Path,” the Buddha’s prescribed method to reach the end of suffering. The midway place of Right Speech along the Noble Eightfold Path is interesting, because speech is the first action to follow the gaining of wisdom and positive intention, as developed in meditation. By this view, speech is a person's very first chance to act morally in the world. It is followed then in the Noble Eightfold Path by “Right Action” and “Right Livelihood.”  Also, very helpfully for journalists, the identifying traits of Right Speech are specifically defined as “timely, truthful, helpful, and spoken with a mind of good will.” Likewise, the five main types of speech to avoid are lies, divisive speech, harsh and abusive speech, and idle and distracting speech.

Can a new global journalism of healing be practiced that embraces timely, truthful and helpful speech, and avoids the five destructive modes?

It would be important and interesting to find out.

Copyright @ 2008 The McGill Report

For Part 1 of the Burleigh Lecture, click here.
For Part 2, click here.

Do Buddhists Believe in God?

Unitarian Universalist Church, Rochester, MN

Sunday Sermon, February 17, 2008

ROCHESTER, MN -- I picked the topic for today's sermon, ''Do Buddhists Believe in God?'', because I'm asked occasionally to speak about Buddhism at churches around town. This is usually the first question to come up. If it's not the first question, it's at least always the one that generates the most interest and anxiety in the room. 

Everything goes quiet when somebody finally asks, ''Do Buddhists believe in God?'' I believe this quiet that descends is out of deference for what most people today believe is the ultimate question, the one that spiritually matters the most. 

The Buddha was careful in answering this question. On the one hand, he often maintained a Sphinx-like silence when asked it, refusing to answer one way or another. At other times, he implied that the answer was "neither knowable nor unknowable," and that spending lots of time and argument trying to find an answer was therefore "not conducive to spiritual life." 

And yet, there is an important sense, one that serious Buddhists acknowledge, in which questions about God certainly are the ultimate spiritual questions. 

Many contemporary Buddhists consider this.   

Haven't each of us had moments where we seem to be in touch, even if briefly, with a higher power? No matter what our religion, this is a common human experience which we register not just intellectually, but even more so bodily, emotionally, and spiritually. 

During such moments and sometimes long after, we may feel the powerful, natural arising of positive intentions such as compassion, equanimity, generosity, patience and truthfulness. 

What are these moments about? Why do they happen? 

Where does morality come from? 

Seen in this way, few if any Buddhist masters from 2,500 years of history would object to saying that Buddhist practice is about finding this living God within oneself, and in one's daily life.  

There are three major contemporary teachers on the relationship of Buddhism to Judeo-Christian notions of God. They are the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, and many recent Buddhist interpreters of the Gnostic Gospels, discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

The Dalai Lama compares Christian notions of God and compassion to Buddhist teachings. His favorite device is to compare Buddhist texts to Bible passages, such as the Matthew 5 passage where Jesus teaches people to turn the other cheek and ''To love your enemies and pray for your persecutors.'' 

The Dalai Lama says: ''This passage could be introduced into a Buddhist text and it would not even be recognized as traditional Christian scriptures.'' To demonstrate, he quotes the Dhammapada, a collection of the Buddha's sayings, whose most  famous passage reads: '''He insulted me, he hurt me, he defeated me, he robbed me.' Those who think such thoughts will not be free from hate. For hate is not conquered by hate: hate is conquered by love. This is eternal law.'' 

The Gnostic Gospels, as most of you probably know, are the ''lost gospels'' of early Christianity. Many  people believe these texts describe authentic Christianity, that is, before institutional religion distorted Jesus' original teachings to suit the needs of a powerful, global, proselytizing church. 

Whether that last accusation is fair, the Gnostic Gospels surely offer a very Buddhist-like early Christianity, and a very Buddha-like Jesus. 

For example, the Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, just like the Buddha in the Parable of the Poisoned Arrow, time after time warns his followers to avoid trying to find his essence in his words, or in any system of religious or conceptual thinking. 

Every time his followers try to pin him down in this way, Jesus spins away. He says in the Gospel of Thomas: 

''If those who lead you say to you, 'Look, the Kingdom is in the sky,' the birds of the sky will get there first.' If they say, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will get there first. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the children of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and it is you who are that poverty.'' 

The Buddha, like Jesus, used many verbal ploys to illustrate that his true, living nature had nothing to do with words or thoughts or definitions.

In one story, soon after his enlightenment, the Buddha passed a man on the road who was struck by the Buddha's extraordinary radiance and peaceful presence.

The man stopped and asked, "My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a god?" "No," said the Buddha. "Well, then, are you some kind of magician or wizard?" Again the Buddha answered, "No." "Are you a man?" "No." "Well, my friend, then what are you?" The Buddha replied, ''I am awake.''

The Buddha taught humans to seek this state of being awake  within themselves. ''Be a lamp unto yourselves,'' he said.

Jesus also used the metaphor of inner light to describe his living essence, both in the Bible – ''I am the light of the world'' he says in John 8:12 -- and in the Gospel of Thomas when he says: ''I am the light that is over all. I am the all. The all came forth out of me, and to me the all has come. Split a piece of wood, I am there. Lift a stone, and you will find me there.''

Instead of focusing on these words or the ideas they express, you might try an experiment. What I am offering here is a traditional Buddhist meditation. 

To understand the meaning of Jesus’s or the Buddha’s inner light, be aware of your body and your mind as it is right now, at this very moment, right here in church. Ask ''How is my body and mind right now?'' Don’t look or strain to hear anything special, inner voices or glinting sunbeams, or anything like that. Just note whatever little aches and pains or heat or tingling you may feel, anywhere in your body, just little sensations here and there. As ordinary or boring as it may seem, just with these for as long as you can.

Just notice whatever is happening in your body and your mind for a few continuous moments.

This is a standard Buddhist meditation, but it is also, you see, very much like inviting you to experience your own body and mind as that piece of wood, or the lifted rock, from the Gospel of Thomas.

This is where Jesus said he was to be found.

More than any other contemporary Buddhist, the Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has drawn parallels between the Christian and Buddhist conceptions of God.

Thich Nhat Hanh calls God by a name that he invented, called ''interbeing.'' I’ll end my remarks today with a passage from Thich Nhat Hanh, taken from his book that compares Buddhism to Christianity called ''Living Buddha, Living Christ.''

''When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, there could be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements. It has no independent, individual existence. It 'inter-is' with everything else in the universe. When we see the nature of interbeing, barriers between ourselves and others are dissolved, and peace, love and understanding are possible. Whenever there is understanding, compassion is born.''

To Thich Nhat Hanh, to the Dalai Lama, and to many other contemporary Buddhists, the being born anew every moment – as registered in our everyday aches and pains, our little spots of passing pleasure and our ordinary sensations – are what really matters.

This is not a question to be pondered, a theory to be debated, or a belief to be grasped.

It's an experience to be had. And it can be had right here, right now. 

It is, both Buddha and Jesus tell us, a chance to experience the living God.

Copyright @ 2008 Douglas McGill

Why Can't Journalism Talk About Its Own Morals?

ROCHESTER, MN -- As the New Year rolls in like an inexorable tide, I have watched the elections, done some reading and made a resolution as a journalist, as a citizen, and as a guy.

It's a resolution about, um, morality.

It's about how to determine what's right from what's wrong, wholesome from unwholesome, especially in the making and consuming of the media.

My resolution is about how to tell the difference between good and evil in the  media, which flattens the bumpy richness of life into a single, thin, fluorescent or inky dimension.

I'm excited but nervous to be writing this.

Because on the one hand, I'm energized to be speaking openly about morality and journalism. That breaks an ancient taboo of my own profession, which is always an exciting day's work.

On the other hand, there are dangers in talking about morality in journalism, the high-walled and sometimes vengeful kingdom of neutral "objectivity."

Robertson or Chopra?

It's easy for readers to spot that single word "morality," and immediately decide one has succumbed  to rightwing scolds a la Pat Robertson, or to New Age fuzzyheads a la Deepak Chopra. (The latter being much the greater likelihood for me, Buddhist as I am.)

But it's just this pigeonholing of anyone who talks about morals that fuels my drive to find the roots of the problem. Because surely it is dangerous not just for the media but for society.

If the people who create the mass media and the millions of other who consume it, don't have a language to talk with each other about what's right and wrong, what's healthy and what's unhealthy to consume, what kind of a mass media and journalism are we going to have?

At the very least, by simple logic, we will have a confused mass media and journalism. And at worst we'll have a wicked one, as chaos is often exploited by the intelligent but depraved. 

Simple Question

At the library I found three trusted guides through these tricky waters -- "communitarian" philosophers who explain why topics like morals, character and virtue are so little discussed in modern society at large. Not just in journalism and the media, but everywhere.

My guides were Michael Sandel, a Harvard professor who wrote “Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy;” Jonathan Durham Peters, a professor of media history at the University of Iowa and the author of “Courting the Abyss: Free Speech and the Liberal Tradition;” and the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, who wrote a brief but inspiring essay called “Spiritual Thinking.”

All three of these writers ask vivid questions to kick-start moral thinking. One question they all ask in one form or another is:

How come Lady Justice wears a blindfold?

And hey, is that really such a good idea?

The Blindfold Theory

Is willful blindness the best way to make ethical, wise choices? Is it smart to block from our consciousness all those telling little winks and tics that we constantly receive from the life around us and by which, in reality, we navigate our daily rounds? 

Hillary Clinton just won the New Hampshire primary based on a microsecond of tearing up, plus a tiny subtle hitch in her voice that apparently persuaded a few thousand women to switch their votes to her at the last minute.

Lady Justice would have missed it all. 

The blindfold theory holds that on the societal scale, the rational process of balancing costs and benefits works better than seeking wisdom from within one’s supposedly subjective conscience and soul.

Does that reasoning pass the common sense test? 

I’ve got a big pile of poker chips placed on this question, because as a journalist I’ve worn a mighty moral blindfold for 30 years. It goes by the name of “objectivity,” the idea that journalists serve the public best by writing about issues as neutral bystanders, rigorously detached from what they observe.

Without taking sides, we journalists are supposed to gather facts and deliver them to the public to “let the readers decide.” 

Sandel, Peters, Taylor

I’ve wrestled with journalism’s objectivity problem before. After a fair amount of soul-searching, a few years ago I finally was able to describe (as many others have before me) the ethical shortcuts and rationalizations that journalists make in objectivity’s name. 

But until I read my three philosopher-guides, I’d never before felt that I understood the true roots of the problem. So how could I ever have hoped to resolve it? 

The three authors are Michael Sandel, a Harvard professor who wrote “Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics;” Jonathan Durham Peters, a professor of media history at the University of Iowa and the author of “Courting the Abyss: Free Speech and the Liberal Tradition;” and the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, who wrote a brief essay called “Spiritual Thinking.”   

For all three writers, the mighty blindfold is called liberal political theory, which is not just a theory of course but the bedrock faith of modern western society. These authors especially deplore the strain of liberalism that has dominated in the past half-century, which they say has removed individuals as moral decision-makers from public affairs. 

Depressed Newsrooms

“According to this liberalism,” Sandel writes, “government should be neutral as to conceptions of the good life. Government should not affirm, through its policies or laws, any particular conception of the good life; instead it should provide a neutral framework of rights within which people can choose their own values and ends.” 

By defining individual moral action in society as a choice between ready-made options, which Sandel calls the “procedural republic,” instead of developing the character of individuals to make subtle, case-by-case decisions, Sandel says society loses in the end. 

“A political agenda lacking substantive moral discourse is one symptom of the public philosophy of the procedural republic,” he writes. It has also “coincided with a growing sense of disempowerment. Despite the expansion of rights in recent decades, Americans find to their frustration that they are losing control of the forces that govern their lives.” 

That sounds like the depressed atmosphere of mainstream newsrooms today. 

Disempowerment in newsrooms today takes many forms, all the way from mass layoffs at newspapers that are downsizing, to the frustration of reporters who are assigned to cover celebrity scandals while skipping important civic issues.

Meanwhile, there is neither any substantive moral discourse in newsrooms about these trends, nor any suitable framework to have one. (Only fired and refugee mainstream journalists on the Internet can try that!) 

"Satanic" Arguments

John Durham Peters’ critique of liberalism is more radical than Sandel’s, especially on the right to free speech and the lengths to which he believes the media exploit it. 

“There is something satanic about many liberal arguments in favor of free expression,” Peters writes. “Defenders of free speech often like to plumb the depths of the underworld. They tread where angels do not dare and reemerge escorting scruffy, marginal, or outlaw figures, many of whom spend their time planting slaps in the face of the public.” 

In a talk at McGill University last year, Peters placed a red laser dot on liberalism in plainer English: “Liberalism undermines itself by pretending to be above the battle, by pretending to be neutral. Lots of liberals say it’s only a set of procedures and rules. But I would suggest that liberalism is one of the players. It’s not a referee. And that liberalism needs to recognize that it too has a vision. And that even in claiming neutrality it thereby forfeits a kind of neutrality, because by always trying to seek the higher ground it ends up pushing people out of an ethical position.” 

Looking back, I have never seen more moral hypocrisy than in mainstream newsrooms, such as at The New York Times where I worked as a reporter from 1979 to 1989, and as a bureau chief for Bloomberg News in its Tokyo, London and Hong Kong newsrooms in the 1990s. Of course, I count myself as one of the hypocrites. 

Absolutism Corrupts Absolutely?

On the one hand, reporters and editors in all these newsrooms were deeply committed to ferreting out the truth, and sometimes showed great courage in doing so. This behavior alone demonstrates journalists' deeply personal and moral involvement in society. 

Yet at the same time, whenever moral questions arose upon the publication of our hard-won factual narratives, our first impulse was always to exempt ourselves from any further dialog by citing “objectivity.”

Our job was simply to gather and put out the information we dug up, we told our miffed complainants, and that was the end of our involvement. 

The accuracy of the facts that we published, and not any further discussion about the moral shadings raised by the timing or manner of their publication, was the highest moral principle we felt beholden too. “You’ve got a problem with what we published, talk to our lawyers,” we’d say to anyone who raised questions.

Free speech absolutism was the alpha and the omega of our moral thinking. That was expedient, but was it right? 

Reflecting on my newsroom experience in the light of Sandel and Peters, I think that by insisting on such moral disengagement, we journalists hurt society in several ways.

Three Problems 

First, we abdicate our leadership role in society as clear, honest, reliable communicators. We limit the valuable contributions that we could make to society as exemplary communicators, by clinging to a hypocrisy that is visible for all to see.

Second, we contribute to journalism’s decline by degrading the public trust that is journalism’s principal foundation.

Third, and worst of all, by our moral obtuseness we fail to create a public space that facilitates robust and open discussion about what constitutes the good life – the best forms of government, the best values and models of human behavior. 

A multicultural and global society especially needs such a free and open forum to progress peacefully. If journalism doesn’t create one, what social institution will? 

These questions apply to citizen journalists -- the millions of bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers and other ordinary folks who are reporting the world around them on the Internet -- as much and even more so than to trained journalists. 

Because like it or not, the formal institutions of journalism, and with them the traditional journalistic values they once protected, are crumbling. That turns the ethical imperative for creating useful journalism over to the people who account for the vast majority of hours that actually are spent today in society looking around, and then recording and commenting on what’s seen, the essential journalistic enterprise. 

So what’s the answer? 

Neighbors and Strangers

My philosopher-guides guides offer three variations on a civic-minded theme. 

Michael Sandel counsels a revival of republican public philosophy that stresses the formation of individual moral character, much along the lines that Thomas Jefferson endorsed in his agrarian vision of democracy. 

John Durham Peters advocates drawing on religious traditions that are in sync with each other and with secular solidarity. “One of the central principles of the law in Judaism is kindness to the stranger, and one of the central principles of Christianity is love of the neighbor,” he says. “In some way, [those] are more powerful foundations for thinking about society than liberalism if you want a society with both solidarity and freedom in it.” 

Charles Taylor, in his brief but enlightening essay, advocates a communitarian project similar to Sandel’s and Peters’. Yet he cautions that any future peaceful world will require a burdensome body of laws and rules to maintain order. 

“We will in many ways be living lives under even greater discipline than today,” Taylor says. “More than ever we are going to need trail-blazers who will open or retrieve forgotten modes of prayer, meditation, friendship, solidarity and compassionate action.” 

Personally, I doubt that any such trail-blazers will be wearing blindfolds. 

My Resolution

My New Year’s resolution is to work as a journalist, to act as a citizen, and to live as a human without a blindfold.

Instead, I'll try to simply use my God-given head and heart and eyes.

Mindfulness, Blended Orgasms and the News

ROCHESTER, MN -- In the grocery checkout line the other day, holding my milk and eggs in hand, I scanned the magazine rack headlines:

• The Blended Orgasm – A More Intense Climax
• Bite Me! Woman’s Bizarre Relationship With Mosquitoes
• Bomb Blast Near Bhutto Kills 126 in Pakistan
• “Queen of Mean” Leaves $12 Million to Pet Pooch
• Viking Fans Feel the Pain, Again and Again and ...

Has anyone out there noticed how a calm mind evaporates like the dew when exposed to newspaper headlines, magazine covers, and Sunday morning talk TV?

Even the serious Pakistan headline above, mixed into this gruel, is transformed into a jitter-making diversion, a passing frisson of gloom.

Yet there is a sense too in which the Pakistan headline fits right along with the others – that is, in the human insanity being described. The tabloids all-too-accurately report on our obsessive attachments and delusions, on the human condition, just as our newspapers factually report the news.

All of it dispels calm:

The strange human urge to be bitten! Maybe I’ll experiment!

The urgency of news from Pakistan! I must respond to it!

Blended orgasms – wow! How can I get one or give one?

I point to how the mass media transforms calm to agitation, because according to the Buddhist tradition, developing inner calm is the royal road to wisdom, which is the royal road to peace.

Obsessions & Fetters

Therefore, if the mass media -- and journalism as the conscience of the mass media -- is going to contribute to world peace, it will have to help develop calm states of mind among its consumers worldwide.

The Buddhist term for calm is “samatha,” or tranquility.

“Monks!” the Buddha once addressed his orange-robed followers. “There is the case where a monk has developed insight preceded by tranquility. As he develops insight preceded by tranquility, the path is born. He follows that path, develops it and pursues it. As he follows the path, developing it and pursuing it — his fetters are abandoned, his obsessions destroyed.”

Those would be the fetters of ignorance and mental restlessness, and the obsession with forming solid opinions, theories, identities and careers.

Developing calm mind states, the Buddha said, begins the path to peace.

Is the mass media, and journalism as the conscience of the media, following this path?

Is the mass media’s role as a major influence on mass mind-states even explicitly addressed in the codified ethics of any branch of the mass media? If not, why not?

Planetary Resource

When you think of it, is there any resource on the planet more precious than a calm mind? The human race needs calm minds like it needs oxygen. When calm minds disappear, anxiety appears, and violence lurks close by.

Without a calm collective mind the human species surely will perish as quickly as if the ozone layer disappeared, or the polar ice caps melted tomorrow. And the mass media – when consumed or produced in huge amounts by anxious and scattered minds – is surely one of the greatest manmade threats to the vital planetary resource of calm minds.

Buddhist psychology precisely names the three basic toxins – the Buddha called them “visiting forces” – that attack the naturally calm human mind.

They are the “kilesas,” or defilements, and they come in three main varieties: greed, which is wanting to grasp what is pleasant; aversion, which is wanting to avoid or annihilate what is unpleasant; and delusion, which is ignorance of reality and an infatuation with unreal things.

Giddy Blisses

Mixing these three ingredients in different proportions yields the full menu of poisons that human beings fall heir to – anger, jealousy, lust, fear, anxious planning, tearful reminiscing, giddy blisses, judging, perfectionism, hypochondria, self-pity, martyrdom, horror, depression, and on and on.

As a journalist, my concern is that I know very little about the role that words and images play as a host or vector of the kilesas; or how language might be used to host, transmit, or support calm and wise states of mind.

The idea that as a journalist, not to mention as a person, I unconsciously host or transmit language toxins – kilesas, if you will, destroyers of the precious natural resource of calm – is slightly haunting. So is the idea that my culture offers no training in the public use of language in wholesome, ethical ways.

Don’t get me wrong.

I am 100% in favor of blended orgasms, whatever they are.

I just want to be able to get one, to give one, and as a journalist to tell the world about them – along with the distracting yet important daily news -- while also staying wise, caring and calm.

A Journalism of Morally Skilful Speech

The doctrine of Right Speech (morally skillful speech) holds a pivotal place in Buddhism's overall moral system, as a kind of gateway between thought and action, between moral intention and active expression.

According to the Buddha, speech is the first action that an individual may positively take in the world following a period of quiet meditation, and perhaps the achievement of some insight into ''the way things are'' through meditation. The equanimity and inner peace that may have developed in meditation thus has a chance to be expressed in the world immediately through speech, even before action.

Crucially, the Buddha explicitly identifies Right Speech as a necessary step on the path to enlightenment. It is given as the first of three virtues necessary as a foundation for spiritual growth, the two others being Right Action (acting so as to help and not harm all sentient beings) and Right Livelihood (making a living in a useful and nonviolent way). Put another way, attaining enlightenment without having mastered Right Speech is impossible. This is true of all three of the above-named virtues but again, by listing Right Speech above the other two, the Buddha seems to give it a certain priority as  requiring that the utmost careful attention be paid to the incredibly subtle, but also incredibly powerful, uses and abuses of human speech.

It's important to sketch out the larger system in which Right Speech holds such a special and pivotal place. That larger moral system, which essentially contains the entirety of the Buddha's teachings, is usually referred to as the Four Noble Truths. These truths were the subject of the Buddha's first sermon following his enlightenment, and he often said they were all that he taught his 50 years as a wandering monk. The Buddha summarized the Four Noble Truths by saying that all his teaching was about one thing only: ''Suffering and the end of suffering.'' The Four Noble Truths are usually given as 1) The truth of suffering, 2) The truth of the arising of suffering, 3) The truth of the end of suffering, and 4) The path to the end of suffering.

The First Noble Truth, the truth of suffering, says that the impermanence of all things is the source of human suffering. The Buddhist word ''dukkha,'' usually translated as ''suffering'' (and the source of the mistaken popular notion that Buddhism is a nihilistic creed) actually connotes not only the ideas of human suffering, discomfort, and pain, but additionally the ideas of impermanence, imperfection, emptiness, and void. The Noble Truth of Suffering says that at the heart of the human experience lies a cosmic seed of imperfection that we spend our lives trying to understand and heal.

The Second Noble Truth, the truth of the arising of suffering, says that ignorance is the root of all suffering. More specifically, it says that ignorance of the present conditions of life -- of  ''the way things are'' -- sets off a chain of potentially disastrous inner reactions based on that ignorance: either trying to make permanent what one likes, or trying to destroy what one dislikes. Either of those reactions only tightens the grip of desire or aversion, leading people to devise ever more desperate schemes for release.

The Third Noble Truth, the truth of the end of suffering, says that an experiential understanding of the way things are, can lead to the end of suffering. This transcendent wisdom gained through meditation dissolves suffering as the morning sun evaporates the dew. It's a wisdom-in-the-bones, a knowledge of lived experience, and not anything book-learned or mentally puzzled out. It blooms from within, drawing on its own depths for nourishment. Suffering ends because wisdom creates the possibility of action that is smoothly continuous with the realities of the world.

The Fourth Noble Truth, the path to the end of suffering, is the Buddha's great how-to manual of enlightenment. It describes eight steps that collectively create conditions in which suffering can decrease by degrees, and finally cease completely. Although the path is usually described as having eight steps, in essence there are only three, with each of those three broken down in groupings of three, three, and two sub-step. The three basic steps are ethical conduct, meditation, and transforming insight into the way things are. Rather than forming a stairway that leads to heaven, these three steps and their eight sub-steps are more like a Mobius Strip that endlessly leaves, travels, and arrives in the here and now. One can start anywhere on the path, or choose to follow any step at any time, or several or all of them all at once, and always arrive at the same place. The Noble Eightfold Path, as the path to the end of suffering is usually called, truly describes more of a place than a path, with the place being the present, a boundary-less orb without coordinates in which all things happen everywhere all the time. To phrase it this way is to advance to the end of the teaching at the speed of light, so take it as you will. The basic point is that the Noble Eightfold Path leads a person to a direct experience of the way things are, which is the solvent of ignorance, which is the path to the end of suffering.

The Noble Eightfold Path is usually shown schematically as:

1. Right View	Transforming Insight
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech	Ethical Conduct
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort	Meditation
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration

 

The essential logic of the path is that virtuous action in the world creates a foundation for fruitful individual meditation, and that individual meditation creates a foundation for the arising of wisdom in a soul. A virtuous circle leading to the end of suffering can thus be started by entering the path at any point. Yet, within this virtuous cycle, Right Speech stands at an especially critical point, which is the line proceeding from wisdom towards virtue. Right Speech  lies right at the point where the wholesome soul developed through meditation, decides to express itself in the world. The very first such expression, the Buddha says, is speech that will either spread the peace achieved by meditation into the world or, if unskillfully spoken, will assuredly achieve just the opposite effect.

   

 

The doctrine of Right Speech (morally skillful speech) holds a pivotal place in Buddhism's overall moral system, as a kind of gateway between thought and action, between moral intention and active expression.

According to the Buddha, speech is the first action that an individual may positively take in the world following a period of quiet meditation, and perhaps the achievement of some insight into ''the way things are'' through meditation. The equanimity and inner peace that may have developed in meditation thus has a chance to be expressed in the world immediately through speech, even before action.

Crucially, the Buddha explicitly identifies Right Speech as a necessary step on the path to enlightenment. It is given as the first of three virtues necessary as a foundation for spiritual growth, the two others being Right Action (acting so as to help and not harm all sentient beings) and Right Livelihood (making a living in a useful and nonviolent way). Put another way, attaining enlightenment without having mastered Right Speech is impossible. This is true of all three of the above-named virtues but again, by listing Right Speech above the other two, the Buddha seems to give it a certain priority as  requiring that the utmost careful attention be paid to the incredibly subtle, but also incredibly powerful, uses and abuses of human speech.

It's important to sketch out the larger system in which Right Speech holds such a special and pivotal place. That larger moral system, which essentially contains the entirety of the Buddha's teachings, is usually referred to as the Four Noble Truths. These truths were the subject of the Buddha's first sermon following his enlightenment, and he often said they were all that he taught his 50 years as a wandering monk. The Buddha summarized the Four Noble Truths by saying that all his teaching was about one thing only: ''Suffering and the end of suffering.'' The Four Noble Truths are usually given as 1) The truth of suffering, 2) The truth of the arising of suffering, 3) The truth of the end of suffering, and 4) The path to the end of suffering.

The First Noble Truth, the truth of suffering, says that the impermanence of all things is the source of human suffering. The Buddhist word ''dukkha,'' usually translated as ''suffering'' (and the source of the mistaken popular notion that Buddhism is a nihilistic creed) actually connotes not only the ideas of human suffering, discomfort, and pain, but additionally the ideas of impermanence, imperfection, emptiness, and void. The Noble Truth of Suffering says that at the heart of the human experience lies a cosmic seed of imperfection that we spend our lives trying to understand and heal.

The Second Noble Truth, the truth of the arising of suffering, says that ignorance is the root of all suffering. More specifically, it says that ignorance of the present conditions of life -- of  ''the way things are'' -- sets off a chain of potentially disastrous inner reactions based on that ignorance: either trying to make permanent what one likes, or trying to destroy what one dislikes. Either of those reactions only tightens the grip of desire or aversion, leading people to devise ever more desperate schemes for release.

The Third Noble Truth, the truth of the end of suffering, says that an experiential understanding of the way things are, can lead to the end of suffering. This transcendent wisdom gained through meditation dissolves suffering as the morning sun evaporates the dew. It's a wisdom-in-the-bones, a knowledge of lived experience, and not anything book-learned or mentally puzzled out. It blooms from within, drawing on its own depths for nourishment. Suffering ends because wisdom creates the possibility of action that is smoothly continuous with the realities of the world.

The Fourth Noble Truth, the path to the end of suffering, is the Buddha's great how-to manual of enlightenment. It describes eight steps that collectively create conditions in which suffering can decrease by degrees, and finally cease completely. Although the path is usually described as having eight steps, in essence there are only three, with each of those three broken down in groupings of three, three, and two sub-step. The three basic steps are ethical conduct, meditation, and transforming insight into the way things are. Rather than forming a stairway that leads to heaven, these three steps and their eight sub-steps are more like a Mobius Strip that endlessly leaves, travels, and arrives in the here and now. One can start anywhere on the path, or choose to follow any step at any time, or several or all of them all at once, and always arrive at the same place. The Noble Eightfold Path, as the path to the end of suffering is usually called, truly describes more of a place than a path, with the place being the present, a boundary-less orb without coordinates in which all things happen everywhere all the time. To phrase it this way is to advance to the end of the teaching at the speed of light, so take it as you will. The basic point is that the Noble Eightfold Path leads a person to a direct experience of the way things are, which is the solvent of ignorance, which is the path to the end of suffering.

The Noble Eightfold Path is usually shown schematically as:

1. Right View	Transforming Insight
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech	Ethical Conduct
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort	Meditation
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration

 

The essential logic of the path is that virtuous action in the world creates a foundation for fruitful individual meditation, and that individual meditation creates a foundation for the arising of wisdom in a soul. A virtuous circle leading to the end of suffering can thus be started by entering the path at any point. Yet, within this virtuous cycle, Right Speech stands at an especially critical point, which is the line proceeding from wisdom towards virtue. Right Speech  lies right at the point where the wholesome soul developed through meditation, decides to express itself in the world. The very first such expression, the Buddha says, is speech that will either spread the peace achieved by meditation into the world or, if unskillfully spoken, will assuredly achieve just the opposite effect.

The doctrine of Right Speech (morally skillful speech) holds a pivotal place in Buddhism's overall moral system, as a kind of gateway between thought and action, between moral intention and active expression.

According to the Buddha, speech is the first action that an individual may positively take in the world following a period of quiet meditation, and perhaps the achievement of some insight into ''the way things are'' through meditation. The equanimity and inner peace that may have developed in meditation thus has a chance to be expressed in the world immediately through speech, even before action.

Crucially, the Buddha explicitly identifies Right Speech as a necessary step on the path to enlightenment. It is given as the first of three virtues necessary as a foundation for spiritual growth, the two others being Right Action (acting so as to help and not harm all sentient beings) and Right Livelihood (making a living in a useful and nonviolent way). Put another way, attaining enlightenment without having mastered Right Speech is impossible. This is true of all three of the above-named virtues but again, by listing Right Speech above the other two, the Buddha seems to give it a certain priority as  requiring that the utmost careful attention be paid to the incredibly subtle, but also incredibly powerful, uses and abuses of human speech.

It's important to sketch out the larger system in which Right Speech holds such a special and pivotal place. That larger moral system, which essentially contains the entirety of the Buddha's teachings, is usually referred to as the Four Noble Truths. These truths were the subject of the Buddha's first sermon following his enlightenment, and he often said they were all that he taught his 50 years as a wandering monk. The Buddha summarized the Four Noble Truths by saying that all his teaching was about one thing only: ''Suffering and the end of suffering.'' The Four Noble Truths are usually given as 1) The truth of suffering, 2) The truth of the arising of suffering, 3) The truth of the end of suffering, and 4) The path to the end of suffering.

The First Noble Truth, the truth of suffering, says that the impermanence of all things is the source of human suffering. The Buddhist word ''dukkha,'' usually translated as ''suffering'' (and the source of the mistaken popular notion that Buddhism is a nihilistic creed) actually connotes not only the ideas of human suffering, discomfort, and pain, but additionally the ideas of impermanence, imperfection, emptiness, and void. The Noble Truth of Suffering says that at the heart of the human experience lies a cosmic seed of imperfection that we spend our lives trying to understand and heal.

The Second Noble Truth, the truth of the arising of suffering, says that ignorance is the root of all suffering. More specifically, it says that ignorance of the present conditions of life -- of  ''the way things are'' -- sets off a chain of potentially disastrous inner reactions based on that ignorance: either trying to make permanent what one likes, or trying to destroy what one dislikes. Either of those reactions only tightens the grip of desire or aversion, leading people to devise ever more desperate schemes for release.

The Third Noble Truth, the truth of the end of suffering, says that an experiential understanding of the way things are, can lead to the end of suffering. This transcendent wisdom gained through meditation dissolves suffering as the morning sun evaporates the dew. It's a wisdom-in-the-bones, a knowledge of lived experience, and not anything book-learned or mentally puzzled out. It blooms from within, drawing on its own depths for nourishment. Suffering ends because wisdom creates the possibility of action that is smoothly continuous with the realities of the world.

The Fourth Noble Truth, the path to the end of suffering, is the Buddha's great how-to manual of enlightenment. It describes eight steps that collectively create conditions in which suffering can decrease by degrees, and finally cease completely. Although the path is usually described as having eight steps, in essence there are only three, with each of those three broken down in groupings of three, three, and two sub-step. The three basic steps are ethical conduct, meditation, and transforming insight into the way things are. Rather than forming a stairway that leads to heaven, these three steps and their eight sub-steps are more like a Mobius Strip that endlessly leaves, travels, and arrives in the here and now. One can start anywhere on the path, or choose to follow any step at any time, or several or all of them all at once, and always arrive at the same place. The Noble Eightfold Path, as the path to the end of suffering is usually called, truly describes more of a place than a path, with the place being the present, a boundary-less orb without coordinates in which all things happen everywhere all the time. To phrase it this way is to advance to the end of the teaching at the speed of light, so take it as you will. The basic point is that the Noble Eightfold Path leads a person to a direct experience of the way things are, which is the solvent of ignorance, which is the path to the end of suffering.

The Noble Eightfold Path is usually shown schematically as:

1. Right View	Transforming Insight
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech	Ethical Conduct
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort	Meditation
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration

 

The essential logic of the path is that virtuous action in the world creates a foundation for fruitful individual meditation, and that individual meditation creates a foundation for the arising of wisdom in a soul. A virtuous circle leading to the end of suffering can thus be started by entering the path at any point. Yet, within this virtuous cycle, Right Speech stands at an especially critical point, which is the line proceeding from wisdom towards virtue. Right Speech  lies right at the point where the wholesome soul developed through meditation, decides to express itself in the world. The very first such expression, the Buddha says, is speech that will either spread the peace achieved by meditation into the world or, if unskillfully spoken, will assuredly achieve just the opposite effect.