What it Means To Be an Atheist Buddhist

"Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
--Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day"

What it Means to Be an Atheist Buddhist:

"Beings are numberless, I vow to save them.
Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.
Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it."

These are the vows of a Bodhisattva, or somebody who practices a Mahayana form of Buddhism. A Bodhisattva makes such vows with the intent of completely devoting their lives to the cessation of suffering of all beings, which in Buddhism is ultimately done through helping them attain nirvana through following the teachings of the Buddha. "The Buddha" means "The Awakened One." He is the being who, through a series of events unique to his life, was able to attain enlightenment (and thus nirvana, or escape from the cycle of birth and rebirth). His enlightenment showed him the ultimate reality of existence, and within the truth of that ultimate reality he saw an end to his own suffering. This could have been enough for him--to end his own suffering; to be aware, awakened, solely cognizant of the myriad truths and untruths that constitute the cosmos. However, a part of this enlightenment was the realization that everything is connected, that everything is the manifestation of a "dependent co-arising," or that every moment of all of existence is only the result of every being and every thing existing as it does together in that moment. So, the Buddha knew that he needed to share the manner of his enlightenment, and all that he came to know from such an experience, and became the first Bodhisattva. Because each moment, our world, our cosmos, our reality is entirely arisen each moment by the myriad beings and things in their entirety, he knew that suffering could not truly end until all beings are saved, are enlightened. Not just humans, not just animals, not even just the beings in our realm of existence, but all beings.

Delusion is the principal cause of suffering. Greed and hatred are both forms of delusion, and thus so are attachment, jealousy, ignorance, anger, and frustration. Delusion is the separation of awareness from the ultimate realities of Buddhism--that nothing is permanent, that we are all connected, and so there is no true, permanent self. In fact, there is no true, permanent anything. Human beings (most beings) tend to cherish their selves above everything else, which is innately natural. However, the Buddha saw that ultimately it was even more natural to come to the realization that the self is empty, is only the manifestation of everything it is not as it comes together in that moment, only to dissipate and be brought together in the next moment by all that it is not. So, in order to save all beings from suffering, a Bodhisattva must help every being to ease away from their delusions, to ease away from their attachment, anger, greed, and hatred.

Because every moment is a unique, unprecedented, never again repeated amalgamation of events and beings, there is an opportunity for learning, growing, releasing, and accepting from every new thing each moment provides. The Dharma is the teaching of the Buddha, or as Buddhists tend to understand it, the realization of reality. A "Dharma gate" is an opportunity that is provided in each moment to accept and realize the Dharma, to step through your delusions and to understand the ultimate truths of emptiness, dependent co-arising, and impermanence. In every moment such an opportunity is given--to accept and realize the true nature of being, of truths and untruths, of the cosmos, of reality, of it all. A Bodhisattva thus not only looks for, opens, and steps through the endless Dharma gates that arise throughout existence, but also helps other beings to recognize those Dharma gates, those opportunities for growth and improvement, as well.

All of this is contained within the Buddha's way. To be unselfishly (because there is no self, it is easy to be unselfish) giving, patient, accepting, kind, and sincerely compassionate. To live with love and hope that every moment provides an opportunity to end the suffering of others, and in so doing work towards the end of suffering for the world, for the universe, for it all. Everything is empty, everything is connected, and so there is no other purpose to existing than to give everything you might have in that moment to help the other beings in this strange, twisted, marvelous, momentary blip of conscious existence we conveniently label and understand to be life.

Now, because human beings are astoundingly complex creatures in how we evolved to view and interact with our world, such teachings on the inherent emptiness of everything came to be necessary, so that we would not feel so frustrated by the confusing nature of our interactions with each other and the cosmos. Also, because we are astoundingly complex, we then often feel it is necessary to take a simple teaching by a great being who only wanted us to all love each other and re-work it so that it can better suit the means of the myriad facets of our detailed existence. Thus, religions are born. They are born around a message, and by that I mean humans create traditions around teachings, create songs and chants, create idols and images, create customs, dances, bows, and performances so that we can better adapt the teachings to our complicated lives; so that we can remember the old teachings within communities; so that we can take refuge in the simplicity of being told what to do and how to believe that the realities of your suffering have a meaning and purpose. Thus these teachings then bring us together, to live with each other and learn from each other. Thus these teachings often create an in-group to which their must then be an out-group, consisting of everybody who does not understand the divinely suitable understanding of reality, existence, and suffering that you have come to accept and realize.

I believe this to be true of all religions, not just Buddhism.

Now, I identify as an Atheist. I also identify, more or less, as a Buddhist. For all intents and purposes, I identify as the latter as a means of convenience to explain where I am living currently, and what I now spend copious amounts of time studying, practicing, and learning from.

To start, I don't find the two incongruous principally because Buddhism in an atheistic religion. There are no gods, not really, in Buddhism. The Buddha is not a god. He is a man who discovered something he thought was pretty neat, and he wanted to share that with many other people. There are some Buddhist traditions that have deities (such as Tibetan Buddhism), and some sects of Buddhism even consider the Buddha to be somewhat like a God. There are a lot of rather fantastical stories even within Zen literature about the Buddha and the great Bodhisattvas (such as Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri.) But believing in any of this is not a prerequisite for the religion. They are just a manifestation of many years of tradition and the amalgamation of Buddhist thought with the thoughts of various cultures. I do not believe in any of the fantastical elements of such Buddhist traditions; I quite honestly don't think the Buddha himself would have really wanted me to.

I don't want to disregard in any way the real important understandings about my existence as I best comprehend it that have been provided to me through my study of Buddhism. Buddhism, and really, all religions, I understand to be nothing more than philosophies. They are a way of connecting to and understanding our world, each other, and the purpose of it all. They are philosophies that have inspired in people a glimpse of "true reality" to such an extent that it inspires them to "spread the word", with the hope that other people will come to understand their truth. I think that people have this innate urge to do so for many reasons--primarily that we are a gregarious species (being social primates) and so feel a real, inherent necessity to connect to each other. Because humans feel it is so important to give meaning to our lives, the most important way we can connect with people is through sharing an understanding of this meaning. Also, I believe that in many cases this is done because people honestly usually wish the best for each other, especially the people they are close to. So, if they believe they have found a way to alleviate suffering--whether it is through the 8-fold path, a refuge in God, or the presence of a heaven--they want others to also share in that end to suffering. We want people (again, especially the people we're close to) to be happy, because in many complicated ways it usually means that we'll be happy as well.

So, religions and traditions are built upon important philosophies that bring elucidation to the point of life, especially when we all die and are surrounded by death throughout our lives.

My thoughts on the world were not arrived at flippantly--I believe them to be the culmination of a rather thorough investigation on my part. The reason I feel inclined to address them is that quite a few people have expressed to me a wish for clarification on what it means for me to call myself an "Atheist Buddhist." As my own personal understanding of how I came to identify as such is detailed, complex, and the result of a myriad of influences, I can't give my answer lightly or easily. I've kept putting this off because I felt it would rather be an endeavor, which it sort of is. I hope that this can give insight into how I understand my place in the universe for all of you who had hoped to gain some insight into it. 

I am not the only person, by any means, who thinks of their world through the lens of an "Atheist Buddhist." Stephen Bachelor is the most well known, of course, although I have yet to read anything by him. I imagine I'll agree with him on most things. 

A lot of my views were established through my studies in college, where I double majored in Anthropology and Evolutionary Biology & Ecology (EBIO), and minored in Religious Studies. Anthropology was a great bridge between EBIO and religious studies. For those of you who aren't entirely sure what it means to study Anthropology, it is the study of humanity, and is comprised of four main sub-studies: Archaeology, Linguistics, Cultural Anthropology (the study of contemporary cultures), and Biological/Physical Anthropology (the study of the evolution of our species, including the study of primates). I focused on Physical Anthropology in my studies, but had to also study Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology in order to get my degree. Perhaps needless to say, religion is inherent in the shaping and practices of every culture on our planet now and throughout history. In my studies for my Religious Studies minor I ostensibly just studied comparative religions, and how religion shapes cultures, people, and their history. I studied Islam, Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism, and even to some degree Sikhism, Shamanism, Paganism, Mormonism, and various other religions that aren't necessarily "world religions" (such as Christian Science or Seventh-Day Adventism). Throughout my studies on our evolution as a species, our history as a species as understood through archaeology and religious studies, our cultures around the world now, our relation to other primates and animals, and how life evolves and chooses traits in order to best proliferate our genes, it became clear to me that:
1) God is a fabricated construct brought about through various social means to achieve various social and psychological ends, and
2) Every religion is actually similarly something our species has some sort of inherent tendency towards.

I am intensely interested in further studying how it came to be that religiosity (a capacity to be religious) became an inherent trait within our species--I'd dare say even a defining trait, just as much as our bipedalism or immense frontal lobes are. Humans don't only feel an intense desire to connect to something larger than ourselves--we feel an intense need for it. We are so aware of our own mortality--and this clearly suits our success as a species, because we are, right now, biologically speaking, a very successful species; we have no shortage of population growth and have been able to build habitat across the entirety of the planet. However, our awareness of our own mortality has brought us all to some awareness that we must then have some purpose to being alive. Why is there life? Who do I, as an individual, exist?

I find a certain sort of sublime beauty in answering that question with no answer. There is no "point" to our existence or to my existence as an individual. It is, undeniably, completely unbelievable and amazing that so many crazy, improbable events occurred to make not only life on Earth possible, but my own life within that life possible. I am nothing but the culmination of a series of happenstances. I am nothing but a stage in the shifting of stardust. I am only The Universe realizing some tiny portion of itself for this insanely short amount of time. Ultimately, I am nothing.

Which of course, is where Buddhism comes in quite nicely. "Indeed," the Buddha says to me, "you are nothing. But you are such an important nothing." Without my happening to exist as this particular set of elements at this particular time, nothing else could be possible. Buddhists say that nothing is experienced outside of the mind, which to me makes sense. All that I can understand of reality (which is really the only reality I could ever hope to relate to in any sort of deep and fathomable way) is created by, and limited by, my brain. I could not know how to see, how to hear, how to touch, etc. without my brain. All that I know of such things is through my brain. Especially considering that I only have three cones in my eyes that can process color, and only so many smell receptors, and taste receptors, and nerve endings, I know that I could only ever hope to know a tiny sliver of what actually constitutes the ultimate reality of everything. A Mantis Shrimp, with it's 16 cones, knows so much more of color and light than I ever will. A dog with its multitudes of smell receptors will know so much more about that reality than I can ever fathom. The fact that I will live about 80 years, and am evolutionarily and physically constructed to lives as such, adds dimensions to how I perceive and move through time and space that is so much more and so much less than how an ant or a hummingbird, an elephant or a blue whale, understands their time and space. With such an awareness of subjective realities, how could I ever comfortably claim that there is an objective reality? That even if something like that were to exist, it would be able to be understood by any being that is living as we know it? 

Buddhism helps me with all of this as well, by providing the understanding that there is a non-duality to existence as we perceive it, due to the nature of the emptiness of everything. Things can be this, that, this and that, or most usually, both this and that and not this nor that. If everything is, nothing is. If nothing is, everything is. It is only ever our training within our certain cultural upbringing that has trained us to look at things as opposites, when really things are usually simultaneously opposing and the same.

I find that a lot of Buddhist understandings on the nature of reality are not only compatible with those increasingly provided by modern science, but actually congruous with them. Buddhism is a philosophy (albeit not always a tradition) that is centered around change and adaptability. As the Dalai Lama said, "If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims."

It is amazing to me that there is a tradition 2,500 years old that is so accepting to change; it's a testament in and of itself, in my opinion, that it has remained a tradition with central teachings for so long, given how accommodating and accepting it is of change…it shows how steadily applicable those teachings are throughout the many years of change inflicted upon it. I have already written a post about how I can easily accommodate the Buddhist dogmas of impermanence, no-self, and interconnectedness with my understanding of the world as provided to me through my study of Biology (which can be found here.) As such, I'm not going to say too much more about how Buddhism fits with that particular element of my Atheist view of the world right now. 

More difficult, perhaps, is fitting the central Buddhist beliefs of karma and reincarnation into my Atheist worldview. For one, I don't believe in reincarnation. I firmly believe that when I die, I die, and that is it. There is nothing for myself to experience outside of life--no afterlife, no rebirth. I like the Buddhist teaching that in each moment a new self is created and destroyed (for the teaching is not really that there is no self, just that there is no permanent self), because every moment provides a new composition and aggregation of events that make up reality. Again, I've already touched on this in past posts, so I won't do a lot more of it again now. I accept this to be ultimately true, even if most of the time it is tangibly hard to believe. Physically, I am not the same person I was a moment before (because of shifting and dying cells, new elements entering and exiting my body, etc). So, I suppose, in that sense, I can agree with reincarnation, in that every moment, every day, every year, I am different. There is no "me" that really travels this life, but an almost infinite series of "me's", constantly in flux, that are consistently being born and dying. 

I suppose that I can also say I believe in reincarnation in that when I die, the elements and energy that has comprised my body will be turned into new life via decomposers that will be consumed by plants, bacteria, fungi, and animals to continue their lives. But, I do not believe, nor do I ever see myself believing, that "Catherine" will be reborn as an otter or a sunflower or a Pakstani Boy at sometime in the future (as lovely as all of those things are.)

As far as karma goes, I also firmly believe that every action has a consequence. This is easy to see when thinking about our interactions with other living beings, especially people, but I think it is true in simpler moments alone as well. Just this morning Jiryu gave a Dharma talk about how every single action we make impacts the world. Usually Buddhists consider "thinking" an action as well. This, I believe, can be seen tangibly as well. If I become upset, even if no one's around, that makes an impact on how I interact with people when they are around, which impacts their mind-state and actions, which impact the mind-state and actions of the people they interact with, and so on. This is a fundamental teaching within ecology as well--that nothing in the world is an island unto itself, that how you interact with your environment in every moment creates a chain reaction that impacts everything around you, which in turn impact everything around them, and so on. Conversely, I am nothing but the culmination of everything else moving, acting, and thinking--I am the result of everything that is not me just as much as everything else is the result of me. Karma is another way of understanding interdependence. So, if I interact with the world negatively, the world becomes more negative, and eventually, I will feel the effects of my negative actions, sooner or later (same, of course, with positive actions.)

The world is hurting right now (and always) because people do not realize that every action and thought they have impacts the world, although they have the capacity to do so. Somebody gets hurt, or is trained to hate, or lives in the delusion of separation, and they go and react to their suffering by killing 50 people in a nightclub in Orlando, or shooting unarmed black teenagers, or raping college girls, or working for a corporation that consciously works towards polluting our world for a quick profit, or running for office on the basis of fear and anger, or any other such terrible thing happening right now. In turn, people often respond through reaction--which is entirely reasonable and understandable. Hatred breeds hatred; fear breeds fear; anger breeds anger, and so on. It is hard to not get upset about how much suffering there is in the world, and how there just seems to be so many people who seem intent on continuing that suffering, of adding to the world's pain.

For me, I often react by feeling immense guilt, which leads to anxiety and depression. Guilt about being white and privileged; guilt about being American and educated; guilt that I don't suffer as much as so many other people do. This guilt leads me to believe that there is no way I can make an impact on the world, especially from my cushy existence spent gardening and meditating at a Zen center. I don't know what it's like to be a person of color, or homosexual, or starving, or sick, disabled, traumatized, or oppressed in any sort of real way. I am really, truly grateful for this, in many ways;  however, I don't believe I can fully relate to the suffering of all of these people, and so I don't know how to help them.

With this, Buddhism helps me as well. We are all connected, because we are all inherently nothing. Hate begets hate, yes---but love also begets love; stillness begets stillness; compassion and empathy beget more compassion and empathy. Practically, I know such an ultimate and idealized understanding does little to change such systemic injustices as racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, or misogyny. But it is truly overwhelming to expect myself to work towards ending all of these things. Instead, palpably, I can love intensely those around me, and make them feel important and loved, so that they can in turn go and make people feel important and loved, and so on. The only way to change the world is to be the change you wish to see in it (paraphrasing Gandhi). Being violent, angry, arrogant, willfully ignorant, jealous, or even guilty, does nothing to end the world's suffering--it only adds to it. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that". 

Zen teaches me that the only way to live life is through the gentle practice of mindful awareness and compassion. By living my life with an appreciation for life as it is, every moment, even throughout the suffering, I am stronger and more able to love deeply and openly. I think that people know that when I love them I do it genuinely, and I think that makes a difference to them. People are inspired by those who are honest, trustworthy, gentle, brave, kind, and loving. There is some deeply, curiously, innate part in us that knows that is what is good (I could hypothesize why this could be evolutionarily speaking, but I think that will ruin the flow for now). To be good and loving is all that there is to do of any importance with our short, magnificent, sad, lovely lives. It is the only thing worth living for.

To save all beings, to end all delusions, to be open to moments of insight, to live with compassion and awareness--that is how I strive to live as a Bodhisattva, how I can learn from the Buddha honestly and genuinely, without believing in enlightenment, samsara, or nirvana; without being a hypocrite.

Being a Buddhist has given me context to allow myself to enjoy moments in life with unbridled love and affection; to appreciate the gentle sound of wind shifting through trees, or how a beam of sunlight illuminates the individual droplets in my shower, or how a person's eyes get bright when they talk about something they love; to feel calm and empty when I look out over vast mountain ranges or even vaster oceans; to appreciate the bizarre wonder of humanity shifting, breathing, bustling, and bursting in cities and crowded rooms; to wonder at the spectacle of acknowledging that there are other people that do not share my views in the slightest, and how it can be so; to know how animals are simple and complex and lovely, and that flowers often seem sentient after it rains.

Human beings are complicated, and so how we interact with and view the world is complicated. All that this long explanation is is true for this moment. I hope that it is subject to change, or else I shall find myself rather bored as life progresses. I do not feel so collected and calm about all of this, nor connected to all of this, when I am anxious and/or depressed, for example. But I believe that a lot of these beliefs are touching on a deep knowledge for how things are, with a complete awareness that most everybody probably feels that way about their own beliefs, which differ from mine.

So it goes, I suppose.

I hope this helps answer some questions. I really don't mind it people disagree with me on any of this. This is just one way of connecting to existence.

Songs of the Week:

I have been thinking about these songs by Gorillaz lately, an old favorite of mine. This album Demon Days is so, so good, in my humble opinion. The live recording of it at the Manchester Opera House is still one of my favorite things to listen to (I first got into the Gorillaz and fell in love with Demon Days when I was 13.) Both of these songs just seem to be so entirely relevant, especially considering the events of the past week.

Kids with Guns:

Kids with guns

Taking over

But it won't be long

They're mesmerized

Skeletons

Kids with guns

Easy does it, easy does it, they got something to say no to

Drinking out (is she real, is she)

Pacifier (is she real, is she)

Demon souls (is she real, is she)

Street desire (is she real, is she)

Didn't mean to (is she real, is she)

But it won't be long (is she real, is she)

Kids with guns

Kids with guns

Easy does it, easy does it, they got something to say no to

And they turn into monsters

Turning us into fire

Turning us into monsters

It's all desire

It's all desire

It's all desire

O Green World:

Oh, green world

Don't desert me now

Bring me back to fallen town

Where someone is still alive

Fighting for something new in this

When no one needs the heart of me and I'll

Get out somewhere other than me before

O green world

Don't deserve me now

I'm made of you and you of me

But where are we?

Oh no

Sells to lie

Phone with talk, you stars

Suppose you

Down when you're in fast

'Cause it seems so little to you

But now you're in love, you know

You know, me too

You know, me too

I hope sex and drugs rust into my self, holy

It feels holy

It feels like you're with your father in the place you love