Jay Forrest On Secular Buddhism

Psychology deals with flourishing, while spirituality deals with awakening. This week I share my deep dive into transpersonal psychology and share some of my impressions. I also share my conviction that a spiritual path must combine psychology and spirituality in order to produce a path that is worth pursuing. I also try to explain what flourishing is and why happiness is not what we should pursue. In fact, to pursue happiness is one of the surest ways to make sure you never experience it. For most people happiness is nothing more than a pleasurable or satisfying experience. Flourishing is much more than that.

The concept of God can be deconstructed into four aspects: fate, personal ideal, ultimate concern, and reality. For me, the word God does not stand for all of these. Specifically, I don’t believe in a personal God. I see God as more of a metaphor for the laws and rhythm and flow of the Universe. I think Tao is a better word for this than God. Reality is the Cosmos, the Cosmos is the Tao when referring to its significance and our relationship with it. Fate is the Tao, for the Cosmos is indifferent to us. The personal ideal then is turned into the hero and the hero’s journey.

Naturalistic Pantheism is now a part of Bodhidaoism. Pantheism is the belief that all is God and God is all. Looking at reality objectively, the natural world is all that exists (Naturalism). Looking at reality subjectively, the Cosmos is Divine. The first is a statement of ontology, the second a value statement expressed metaphorically. Because of this incorporation of God-talk, I have subtracted Existentialism and Humanism from the Eight Streams, and I have added Paganism and Christianity.

I don’t don’t believe in a theistic God. If there is anything that can be called “God”, it is the universe itself. This position is called pantheism. There are pros and cons to calling the universe God. I lay some of them out in this podcast and then ask the listening, should I use God talk or not in Bodhidaoism? And why? This is your chance to influence to outcome of Bodhidaoism. Please leave a comment below for email me directly (I give the email address at the end of the podcast). If you have never contacted me before, now is the time.

Jordan Peterson has written, “Something we cannot see protects us from something we do not understand. The thing we cannot see is culture, in its intrapsychic or internal manifestations. The thing we do not understand is the chaos that gave rise to culture. If the structure of culture is disrupted, unwittingly, chaos returns.” Postmodernism is disrupting or unraveling culture as we know it. I explain structuralism and Jacques Lacan application of it to schizophrenia, and then Fredric Jameson's application of it to late capitalism.

Robert Crawford notes that “there is no universally accepted definition of religion.” And John Hick thinks that “quite possibly there never will be.” Most definitions of religion say that religion involves "a belief in God or gods." But this doesn’t apply to Jainism, Buddhism, or early Daoism. Let me give you my latest definition of religion, “A religion is a comprehensive system of beliefs and practices, followed by a group of people, that is centered on an ultimate concern, and that gives meaning to life and the means for personal and social transformation.” Then we can further subdivide religion into natural or supernatural, and personal or communal.

Dualistic monism in holds that the one reality that we know about has a two-fold aspect to it. For example, there is positive and negative, inside and outside, subjective and objective, light and dark, good and evil, hot and cold, up and down, male and female, and many more. Regular dualism separates these dualities and monism ignores these dualities, making everything one. Dualistic monism breaks out of this either/or mentality and postulates a both/and position. Reality is has both a unity and a duality.

“Identity politics is the tendency for people of a particular race, religion, gender, or ethnicity to organize politically around that special interest for the sole purpose of advancing that interest without concern or regard for any larger group or collective” (Capital Research Center). The intellectual dark web is “an alternative sense meaning making collective” (Eric Weinstein). Included in this group are Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Sam Harris, Bret Weinstein, Eric Weinstein, Michael Shermer, and others.

The plan is to write a eight book series on Exploring Bodhidaoism. If I write two books a year, this will take me four years. This is why I have stopped blogging. The eight books are Eupraxsophy, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Autology, Ethics, Eudaimonology, Ecospirituality, and Praxeology. In this episode I explain each of these in varying degree. It should be interesting to those interested in seeing how Bodhidaoism develops.  I will continue doing the podcast every week.

There are three kinds of knowledge, propositional knowledge, experiential knowledge, and pragmatic knowledge. There is the objective knowledge about something, there is the subjective and personal knowledge of someone or something, and then there is know how. From these three we derive the three tests of truth, correspondence, coherence, and consequences.

Bodhidaoism, until now, has had seven streams of inspiration. From the Western side it has has Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Humanism. And from the Eastern side it has had Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. Today I add an eighth wisdom tradition, namely Existentialism. Jean-Paul Sartre defines existentialism as “a doctrine which makes human life possible and, in addition, declares that every truth and every action implies a human setting and a human subjectivity.” References Jean-Paul Sartre. (1985). Existentialism and the Human Emotion. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp. UPDATE Existentialism is no longer the 8th Stream, but is now incorporated into psychology.

Matthieu Ricard is the author of: A Plea for the Animals: The Moral Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion. It is now my top recommendation for a book that is both comprehensive and based on solid research. The "book invites us to face up to something: in spite of the sense of wonder the animal kingdom inspires in us, we are responsible for an ongoing massacre of animals on a scale unequaled in the history of humankind. Every year, sixty billion land animals and a thousand billion martine animals are killed for our consumption."

A review of Dr. Dean Ornish and Anne Ornish’s new book, UnDo It! How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases. The four step program is eat well, move more, stress less, and love more. As Dr. Dean Ornish states, “A consensus is emerging that a whole-food plant-based diet is the healthiest way of eating.” The evidence is clear, “the best results come from avoiding all animal products.” And furthermore, animal agribusiness generates more greenhouse gases than all forms of transportation combined.” References Dean Ornish, M.D., and Anne Ornish. (2019). UnDo It! How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases. New York: Ballantine Books.

Bertrand Russell said, “Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.” References Bertrand Russell. (1997) The Problems of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Today I deal with Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s book, What is Philosophy? They define philosophy as “the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts” (p. 2). Although I disagree with their definition, I find it helpful. It brings out the need to distinguish the philosopher from the theoretician. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a theoretician as “a person who forms, develops, or studies the theoretical framework of a subject. I argue, on the other hand, that a philosophy is the love and pursuit of wisdom, and the resulting worldview and way of life of that pursuit. A philosopher, in other words, is a worldview weaver. References Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. (1994). What is Philosophy? New York: Columbia University Press.