I’m not a spiritual person. I’ve studied and practiced Buddhism for ten years. If those two statements seem antithetical to you then please allow me to explain how they are not. I believe a lot of people involved with technology misunderstand Buddhism and I hope to clarify a few points for them here.
If you are not familiar with Buddhism, you may be surprised to learn that Buddhists have no God and do not believe in the idea of a soul, let alone an eternal one. Heck, we don’t even believe in the idea of a self!
How can this be? What about reincarnation? What about karma? What about all those Tibetan deity paintings? All good questions but the facts remain: in Buddhism there is no God, no soul and no self. In other words, there is nothing spiritual about Buddhism. Buddhism is concerned only with the here and now.
I am inclined to scientific rationalism. It’s no surprise therefore that I ended up working in the technology field. I am interested in any kind of system, both in terms of design and operation, but I am especially interested in the ones that make humans tick. The latter go by names like sociology, psycholog y, philosophy and pretty well everything on the humanities side of the curriculum along with economics, religion, politics and warfare. I have spent time with each of these but my nature, like that of many people, is to ask the ultimate questions about life. A systems thinker seeks a system as an answer and thus Buddhism entered my life.
I have always been an atheist but one with a true love for the natural world. My idea of God is the DNA molecule: omnipresent, eternal and vastly powerful. We know all life is connected on the physical plane by DNA and I believe that includes ways we currently only dimly perceive but do not yet understand and call by names like mythology and archetype. DNA even seems to be inherent in what we consider non-living matter. Given the right conditions, the chemical precursors of life arise from once molten rock.
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” The Book Of Genesis 3:19
In my first religion, Science, indeed all is one and the One is all.
Still, this personal sense of the nature of things did not satisfy. Something was missing. In the deepest existential sense, I was not happy. No matter the ups or downs of my life, behind everything was a sense of a missing piece of the puzzle. I sought a solution in many teachings, however things really only began to change after I opened a book in a bookstore and read this:
“I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether on believes in this religion or that religion, we are all seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our life is towards happiness…” The book was The Art Of Happiness: A Handbook For Living by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler. M.D.
No one had ever told me before that the purpose of life was happiness. It got my attention. I read on. Ten years later, I am still enthralled with this marvelous system by which one finds happiness.
Webster’s defines technology as: the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area; a capability given by the practical application of knowledge; a manner of accomplishing a task especially using technical processes, methods, or knowledge
Based on the above definitions, Buddhism qualifies as a technology for finding happiness. According to Buddhism, happiness is the absence of suffering. Suffering is caused by wanting things to be other than they are. It is resistance to reality that is the cause of suffering. The way to the end of suffering is to accept that, in each moment, things are the way they are, whether you like it or agree with it or not. The way to learn to do that is to follow Buddha’s Eight Fold Path. The path not only provides the technology to accomplish the goal but its teachings instruct all those who study it to believe nothing based on external authority but only what their own senses and experiences validate.
The Eight Fold Path explains not only how to practice but why the practice of compassion, loving kindness, sympathetic joy and equanimity lead to happiness. It explains how and why one should practice morality, renunciation, mindfulness and harmlessness and how and why one should practice both concentration and insight meditation along with Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood. Not because these things will make you happy but because these things eventually eliminate everything that is preventing you from being happy. Here and now. In this life. And it does so in considerable technical detail.
Buddhism is not a religion for the spiritually inclined. Buddhism is not a philosophy for intellectuals. Buddhism is a technology by which atheists can find true happiness. It is the solution to the riddle that has plagued those of us so inclined down through the centuries — the riddle of finding a way to maintain our integrity in our sense of what is right (right in the sense that a square is made of ninety degree angles) and yet to find happiness in the bargain.
Photo Credits
“Sand Mandala” by Wonderlane
“Computer Circuit” by George August Koch
Liam Clarke says
I found a lot to resonate with in this. When I first looked seriously at Buddhism there was an immediate sense of recognition. It was, in Peter Conradi’s phrase, “like a thing remembered.” rather than something exotic or new.. I also feel uneasy with the term spirituality, it implies there is a spirit, but in some cases it just means the attempt to move beyond our own selfish interests.
Brad Warner, a zen teacher, said that we should look at Shakyamuni Buddha as a genius rather than a religious founder like Jesus or Muhammad. Einstein, for instance, can be revered as someone who gave us a unique and paradigm changing insight into the nature of things. Yet we don’t feel the believer’s compulsion to regard his words as a final, inerrant revelation.
Calling Buddhism a technology strikes me as excessively reductionist, but it’s a provocative and useful thought.
Rick says
Hello Liam. I would have to agree with you that The Buddha was more a genius than any other thing and indeed he welcomed us to test all he said against our own experience.
I appreciate your comment that defining Buddhism as technology is excessively reductionist, however I view the post as simply an effort to present Buddhism to an audience that might normally not be interested and therefore not realize it has something significant to offer them. When addressing the Romans, I speak Latin.
Like you, I am all too aware that once investigated, there is more to Buddhism than its simple cause and effect foundation would at first glance suggest and there is method in my madness.
Mother Nature is economical and the master of recycling. She makes broccoli, ferns, shells, pinecones, hurricanes and galaxies and millions of other objects all by reusing the same simple math. Based on our knowledge of how she reuses what works to build physical objects and their communication systems, it is to be expected that the same math and therefore the same underlying structures and systems would also be the basis of mind. In keeping with this natural economy and wisdom, Shakyamuni Buddha made only a few simple propositions regarding mind, knowing they too add up to much more than the sum of their parts. Introducing Buddhism as technology, and I hold it may be viewed as such, I know it will come to its full flower in fertile ground, as does the simple math that lies in the seed of the rose.
Mikael says
An interesting piece. From the other side of the scientific coin, I like collecting articles on the science of meditation, which are in the meditations news section on my site. It strikes me that the mind influences the functioning of the brain. And it strikes me that we’re nothing other than the direct perception underlying our brain. This. And it appears, if I’m interpreting things correcty, that our choices affect our DNA. So perhaps our body is nothing more than one big or small feedback mechanism to our mind.
Rick says
Thank you Mikael. I agree with you in spirit. A feedback mechanism I believe we are but the part our mind plays in it I place differently. To explain, I will share a scene I often reflect on of a man and a woman sitting on a couch.
Her name is Sarah. His name is David. His body is sending out pheromones which her olfactory system receives and analyses, comparing her DNA to his. If a suitable match is found, her endocrine system produces biochemicals to not only induce Sarah to feel attracted to David, but specifically to cause her to play with her hair. This act releases pheromones of a certain kind of hers which are detected in turn by David’s olfactory receptors. Chemical messages are relayed now within his system and specific hormones are released to cause him to feel aroused and to act upon those feelings. Initially he turns, puts an arm up on the couch, his hand towards her. He also puts one knee up on the couch. These acts increase the propagation of his pheromones. All their feelings and the subsequent thoughts and actions are being orchestrated. By who? Who is it that is really sitting on the couch? Or to put it another way, “Who are Sarah and David?”
I do not see the above scene negatively, but as a clue. We are feedback mechanisms yes but also interfaces of a most marvelous kind. The sense of self, omnipresent in sentient beings, is no accident. God does not play dice. Instead, I believe the self to be a highly refined “virtual” component of the feedback/interface system which plays a vital part in survival that evolution by DNA is too slow to respond to. That part has to do with current environmental conditions and functions based on dynamic rules or what we call values. Its function is that of an override system. Is our rational mind of values not the very thing needed to save us from our own destruction in a world where our evolutionary systems cannot keep up? It is a design of breathtaking elegance and beauty.
Thus I see us as not only feedback mechanisms for a vastly larger intelligence, and as its interfaces, but also I see our bodies as lenses through which we may come to understand all that we truly are and see more deeply into the true nature of reality.
Christopher Holt says
Thank you Rick for the excellent summary of the basics of Buddhism. As a fellow practitioner and interested party, also a technologist type, I too am drawn to Buddhism for its immediacy, peacefulness and profound here-and-now approach to our existence. I always found Buddhism to be the flip side to existentialism and the antidote to our present consumer culture which is driving us all insane. I practiced Buddhism for about 20 years by reading various Buddhist writers, but it wasn’t until I joined the Victoria Zen Centre (http://www.zenwest.ca/) and began a disciplined meditation practice that I began to understand that Buddhism is an experiential practice and that all the reading I had been doing was simply feeding the mind with more fuel for more thoughts.
Thanks again for putting this out there.
Namaste
Rick says
Hi Christopher. Thank you for your kind remarks. I agree with you that practicing with a group is an essential step for the great majority of people. This is a point I emphasize with both the students in my course and in the Secular Buddhists group I facilitate.
Having been an HR manager for many years, I learned about the different learning styles, personality types, temperaments etc. that people have and now believe that these factors are among the reasons people are drawn to different forms of Buddhism.
When doing the research for my course, I found there was a much larger variety of Buddhist groups and resources in Victoria and on the islands than I had previously realized. I have documented them on my Buddhism Victoria site (http://buddhismvictoria.com/). This site provides links to a wide variety of practice groups, retreats or other events and would be a good resource for someone wanting to learn about the different flavors of Buddhism before settling into one. This is also the intention of my beginners course.
Kind regards,
Rick
Christopher Holt says
awesome thanks
Ross says
Dear Rick:
Wonderful, thoughtful post. I have never seen this kind of take on Buddhism before. As a Christian who rejects much of the doctrine of the Church and who believes fully in ecumenism, I find much food for thought in your article. Thank you.
Ross
Rick says
I really appreciate your comments Ross. Thank you.
jackie says
So … Happiness is the purpose of my life.. I consider myself a Buddhist.. Thought my purpose was to learn and teach…Maybe to learn and teach happiness?? Enjoyed your perspective.