Why Spiritual Practice?
As I write this, I have just left the ancient ruins of Ephesis on the Western coast of Turkey, after visiting Athens the day before. In Athens I visited the Parthenon on the acropolis, where I got a good view of the ancient agora (marketplace): the birthplace of Stoic philosophy. I also picked up a nifty small bust of Socrates in a gift shop. At Ephesis, I saw the location where St. Paul addressed the Ephesians and the remains of the chapel where the first ecumenical council was held. The timing of these visits, touching on the continents of both Europe and Asia, is fitting to the writing of an introduction to a work that includes both Eastern and Western ideas. But what good are these ideas today?
I recently read a post by a friend of mine on Facebook. She is a very bright young woman, but has been having a rough time. She’s had a series of painful relationships. She hasn’t been able to find work. She had complications with her roommates and a falling out with some (poor) friends. In a new city, she finally started earning some money as an Uber driver until her car was totaled after being struck by another driver. The other driver wouldn’t admit fault and she has been unable to get a new car. She’s also had some health problems. Now her money is running out and all of this is complicated by depression. Her situation and her emotions seem to be caught in a ‘chicken or the egg’ cycle. This was her post:
“I am so sad and angry that my car is gone. It was my livelihood at the time. The accident, the lying, and the loss of my job and freedom have sent me into a really bad depression. Probably the worst so far. It is ruining all of my relationships. I am worried that I am not going to recover. With my shitty health insurance and lack of money it's unlikely that things will improve at a rate fast enough to compete with the rapid deterioration.”
Like so many friends who are on the sidelines as someone suffers, I couldn’t help but feel empathy and a wish to do something. I have helped a little materially from time to time and have tried to help with words. But material help ultimately misses the mark and can be damaging to a friendship if taken too far. When it comes to helpful words, there are so many things that can’t easily be conveyed or be internalized. Often, our friends have to live through something and only life experience can help over time. We can’t always simply ‘fix’ something, but we can be there to listen and care.
In the case of this post, I was struck by how completely her happiness was dependent on her circumstances. The things happening to her and around her seemed to be such a determining factor. I suspect it is this way with most people. So much so, that I may need to explain myself in even pointing it out. At first blush, it may seem like I am merely blinded by my own, more fortunate, circumstances. It’s easy to discount the experiences of others when we aren’t living them. In these cases we might eject shallow euphemisms or glib ‘get back on the horse’ talk. But what I’d like to tell her is so much more.
But the truth is, this is not something so easily told. I was looking back at her having come through something extraordinary. Words cannot contain it, which was one challenge of writing this book. It was something discovered after some crucial experiences that lead to a series of epiphanies - but these are not to my credit. Rather, they are the result many wise people throughout history who have conveyed profound wisdom after engaging in certain kinds of thought and practice.
My friend is not alone. One can read in countless headlines today, reports that this generation of young people are suffering from anxieties and emotional difficulties of all varieties. What I’d like her and them to understand is that there is a way out of suffering, and a freedom from circumstance as a condition for happiness.
By happiness I mean, not mere pleasure or circumstantial delight. This has proven to be a poor predictor of well being. Rather, I mean a deep sense of inner peace and joy – a happiness that is not contingent upon the vicissitudes of external conditions. Such a happiness inspires an engaged good life, in both senses of the word. We might call this True Happiness to delineate between it and the shallow forms of fleeting happiness with which many confuse it. Or, as ancient philosophers called it: eudaimonia, which means ‘healthy soul’. This enduring joyful serenity or equanimity in life has also been translated as Flourishing.
This book represents a personal journey over the past twelve years, which started with a simple question: what is wisdom? By that time I had already left the faith of my upbringing, a conservative and literalist form of Southern Protestant Christianity. I had gone from mere atheism to secular humanism and had become a Humanist minister1, certified by the American Humanist Association. But as I studied Humanism further it became clear that, although nothing was wrong necessarily, something was missing.
I have always been a lover of philosophy. Though at that time I loved philosophy in the way all young philosophy enthusiasts do - as a means to mingle intellects and supposedly triumph over the idiocy and hypocrisy we had discovered in the world (as though no one had noticed it before). During my college years, between study of the fine arts (my major), were a multitude of debates in classes, at parties, and in bars. There a dizzying array of names were flung about as credentials and technical jargon served as our own secret language. We actually believed that 'being right' and convincing others of our unassailable logic would be sufficient to be happy and make progress in life and for the world. The professors, both by their example and in the structure of their classes, encouraged this kind of so-called "philosophy". It is no wonder that the field has been rendered largely impotent in its capacity to invoke change in the world.
And so a few years later when I began my search on wisdom, I returned to philosophy and was fortunate to eventually encounter the writing of some philosophers who were venturing to return to what philosophy was supposed to be about. My eyes would eventually be opened to real philosophy - living philosophy2.
If you look at figures like Socrates, you see a life much less like an academic and more like Buddhist monks. It is clear that anyone else living and teaching like this today would be considered to be practicing a spirituality. Philosophy like this is meant to be applied to how one lives their life. It doesn’t mean that we all need to go to the mountains or become ascetics. But it does mean something more than intellectualizing.
Over the next several years, with this approach to philosophy, I would metaphorically travel the silk road from West to East, and back again. Socrates lead me to Stoicism, and from there to Buddhism. Along the way, Pyrrhonian, Epicurean, Taoist, Confucian, and other paths would be brought into the mill. Neopaganism, Humanism, and modern science on psychology and meditation, complex systems theory, and consciousness research would come into the mix.
But most significantly, I learned what I should convey to you now:
This book will do nothing for you.
In fact, reading and memorizing the Bible, the Koran, the Tao te Ching, all of the Buddhist Pali Canon, and all modern scientific research will do nothing for you in terms of improving your life - not alone. Reading and knowledge alone will make for enriching entertainment and give you something to impress people with at dinner parties - that's about it.
What matters (what makes the difference between a good life and a life of suffering) is practice. This book can be one of many tools, but only you can improve your life and be happier, and that is all about what you do when you put down this book. If an outside observer wouldn’t notice any difference in the way you spend your time, the practices you begin, the choices you make, the emotional responses you have, or the way you behave; then you may as well have been reading a romance novel.
That is why I have written this book as a handbook and hope it may be a tool for you. What I present here will not be in the form of a scholarly paper. It will be in plain language, meant to invoke the purity and simplicity of many ancient writings3.
While each of these traditions place their signposts at different places along the path, giving them a different focus and character, it seems possible to discern the characteristics of a universal path that is compatible with a scientifically accurate, reasonable, and modern worldview - without requiring any particular faith-based beliefs. This kind of spirituality is called Spiritual Naturalism.
Of course, there is much room for interpretation in such discernment, and so what I present is not meant to represent all possible forms of Spiritual Naturalism, or speak for all Spiritual Naturalists. This book represents my best effort to clearly present my perspective after a decade of comparative study and experience in practice. It is my personal ‘cocktail’ - one of the many ways of practicing Spiritual Naturalism. But I am no ‘guru’ or authority; merely a fellow learner who wants to share with others, and learn from them as well. Building your own practice will be part of your practice. Toward the end of this book, I will give some sources of these concepts, that you may explore further and deeper the paths suitable to you.