Andy's Mind

I was yesterday on a Buddhist lecture at our local Diamond Way center. Amongst the questions asked the issue of vegetarianism arose again. It is normal on Buddhist lectures that people, especially new to the subject ask questions about eating meat.

There are several reasons why this question is so common. First, it’s because in our culture people associate Buddhism with Hinduism out of ignorance. These two religions come from the same cultural roots, yet are very different in their goals, practices and outlook on world. But I think people ask about eating meat so much because quite soon after starting to learn more about Buddhism they hear all the teachings about sentient beings (term which encompasses everything alive, not only humans), need for compassion towards them and the bad consequences of harming them. And then this strange suggestion appears – you can eat meat, but only if it comes from an animal that has been already killed. Don’t kill animals yourself and don’t eat meat from animals that have been killed specifically for the purpose of being eaten by you, personally. A good example is that you come to your friends out in the country and they will tell you “so, we will kill this sheep or pig especially for you” and you should then say “no, thanks”.

It seems a bit hypocritical on the surface. So, you don’t kill and don’t eat animals that are killed for you – but you can eat a pork cutlet or a beef steak. What about all those animals that are being reared especially for that purpose – some would cry out.

And the Buddhist teachers have different ways of responding to that, but it all boils down to this – once it is a cutlet you can’t help it, no good would come out of the fact that you won’t eat it.

There are some other points here as well:

1. The fact that the animal and the butcher meet is primarily due to impressions in their minds and possibly is related to their previous unpleasant encounters. Whatever the cause, this has nothing to do with you – with the exception described above when you take ownership of the act of animal being killed for you specifically – or do it yourself.There is no way of going on living this life in this world without harming other sentient beings, because the world is full of them. The nice story about it is of Kalu Rinpoche explaining to a group of veggies that if they drink tea they could have as well be drinking blood – because of all the beings, mostly small and primitive, that have been killed in the process of  cultivating and preparing tea.

   To cut is short – you should do what you can to avoid consciously harming other beings, but the fact is that you can’t avoid it totally because that’s just impossible.

   And plants are sentient being too, by the way. Only with very limited senses. But on the absolute level they are the same as we – limitless space of mind at play, developing various forms.

2. The question of eating meat or not doesn’t seem to be an important prerequisite to enlightenment – and that’s what Buddhism is all about. To wake up from a dream you can’t concentrate on one or other aspect of it, but on the process of waking up. Enlightenment, they say, is waking up from this dream we think is reality.Buddha Shakyamuni did eat meat (in fact he said to his monks more or less “eat all they will give you”), many other enlightened masters did eat meat.

   Logically, if abstaining from eating meat was an important condition for enlightenment then Buddha would have told something about it, wouldn’t he?

   Tibet is a good example, the Buddhist culture was very strong there and many people did reach enlightenment over the ages – yet natural conditions make meat almost the only nutritional option available there for humans. For all practical purposes the only thing that grows in most parts of this mountainous country is grass. And there are some animals who eat grass. So, either you eat grass or the animals – because there is nothing else to eat.

   Logically, if eating meat would be something that precludes enlightenment no one would achieve it in Tibet, but since many did then it might not be that important.

   This whole concept that something you eat can make you impure in the spiritual sense has been criticized even in our own cultural setting by the guy name Jesus some time ago. Yet, it still lingers on.

Having said all that: if you don’t eat because of compassion for animals – that’s good. Especially, the motivation that drives you is good – it’s in your mind and it’s all about mind anyway. But don’t blame or intimidate others – and above all don’t feel better than others because you do so, because that’s a completely different motivation and would yield a different result.

Yesterday’s entry leads nicely to the whole problem of randomness. I would like to challenge everyone to carefully consider what it is that we call “random”.

I think that “random” is just a mental box, where we put everything that we cannot explain because the chain of causes and effects is either too complex or to remote in terms of time. This box is sometimes also labeled “god’s will” or “gods’ will”. However, this label is less popular now in our secular, modern and presumably rational society. We prefer “science” as our universal source of answers and thus “random”. This has this advantage over “god’s will” that it can be measured and analyzed. Hence the probability theory and statistics which are great at describing and analyzing the events, but which don’t explain anything by themselves. So, for example we can say that a given percentage of smokers would die of cancer. Or that a given percentage of buildings in a given area collapses each year. This doesn’t explain at all why this particular given building collapsed or this particular person developed a tumor. So, we say it was… well… just random.

This is totally contrary to the whole basis of scientific discovery and in fact our approach to almost everything in life. In this we rely on cause and effect. In other words, we assume that if we discover what causes a given effect we can repeat that cause to get it or avoid creating causes of effects we don’t want. So for example we assume that if we plant corn seeds we will get corn, not, say, prunes. And we assume that if we give up smoking we increase our life expectancy. We also assume that if we mix some wheat, water and other stuff and bake it in the oven for an hour we will get bread – each and every time we do so. And there is no chance that, say, a personal computer would come out of the oven.

But if everything would be just random then we couldn’t do nothing about it. If, for example, buildings would collapse at random (as they seemed to before structural engineering was invented) we could do nothing to prevent it. And we couldn’t be sure at all what would come out of the oven. We could just hope it is not a swarm of killer bees this time. We would be effectively paralyzed because no action could be expected to yield a predictable result.

It is amazing how we can continue with our lives and everything our civilization created and still mumble about things being random. It is amazing how bright and educated people can ferociously renounce the idea of all things having causes and gleefully continue to arbitrarily put events they can’t explain in the “random” box.

Now, as I wrote above this box has sometimes a different label on it. The “god’s will” has the advantage that it explains why given event took place… sort of. And you can do something about it – you can pray to god (or gods) to change his mind. Or to turn his mind in favor of your wishes. Or against your foes.

But this concept leads to other problems. But that’s a different story.

This story came to me from a discussion group, but it turned out it also originated on Slashdot.

It all begins with some scientists who have been experimenting with the so called random number generators. Such generator is simply a box which displays random numbers. Generating randomness is a broader theme, there are so-called pseudo-random number generators which are basically complex mathematical functions which yield results which seem random, but aren’t. However, in this case the source is electronic noise – presumably an effect of totally random interactions of particles at quantum (sub-atomic) level.

What is interesting is that it turned out that these boxes, which in theory should produce totally random numbers could be influenced by human consciousness. A team of scientists at Princeton University headed by Robert G. Jahn run a series of experiments back in the seventies, that suggested that conscious concentration could affect the output of a random number generator. This research, collectively known as PEAR was taken to a new level by the Global Consciousness Project which maintains a network of such boxes thought the world . These boxes, called EGGS transmit their output to a central server, where it is analyzed.

Researchers of the project claim that they can see disturbances (or deviation from randomness) in the output of their generators when large events occur like earthquakes, tsunamis or large terrorist attacks. The catch is that the deviations occur a few hours before the events take place. So, in case of the 9/11 attacks the disturbance happened four hours before the first plane hit the WTC – that is even before the terrorist entered their planes. Same happened before the recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

As one might expect such claims seem totally ridiculous in our presumably rational society. However, being a Buddhist I’m not surprised at all. Buddha taught that not only there is no division between me and other sentient beings, but also that on absolute level even the chair I’m sitting on is just another aspect of the same unlimited, clear space of mind.

Buddhists use the word “mind” in a very particular way. It is not used to refer to a single consciousness (presumably somehow connected to or anchored in a given brain) but to… well, everything. This unlimited space of mind is at the same time a container we are all in and the fabric everything is woven of. A fabric that weaves itself. An frequently used by Buddhist writers to explain the relationship of our consciousness with the rest of this space is that of currents in an ocean. A current in an ocean is hardly separate from it, yet it undeniably exists. Buddha said we are such currents that are so concentrated on themselves and all the other forms around them, that we believe that we and those other phenomena actually have an independent existence. Which is, of course, not true.

These concepts are rather hard to understand. They are in many cases hidden behind a mystical language which people with right intuition and trust (some say gained in previous lives) immediately accept but others have trouble with. In traditional Buddhists schools people were gradually introduced to those concepts, since most people are so attached to the idea that reality is, well, real that even a mere suggestion it is not causes them to stop listening – and thinking. Also, traditionally Buddhism practice leads to actually experiencing the clear unlimited space of mind as opposed to just intellectually understanding it. The method which leads to that experience is meditation and experience itself is widely known as enlightenment. There are many forms and flavors of meditation within the Buddhist world ranging from rich forms of Vajrayana (or Tibetan Buddhism) to simple yet hard path of direct insight meditation as practiced in Zen. But they all lead to same goal.

But intellectual understanding of these concepts is possible although not as powerful. Especially in our times it is easier than it was before. Buddha lived and taught 2500 years ago and so both the language he used and the way he taught were adapted to that period. However, in our century parts of the Buddhists outlook on reality don’t sound as revolutionary and odd. For example we already know that on a basic level we are indeed built from the same basic components of matter as everything else around us. We also know that on the subatomic level particles are composed mostly of… nothing, as elementary particles (quarks) are much, much smaller than distances between them.

So – the only thing that really surprised me about the this Global Consciousness Project is that people running it were able to actually observe what could be a side effect of the free play of mind as it forms and reforms bubbling with unimaginably huge number of streams running through it.

Of course, this research is still preliminary. The first event I thought of and checked were the terrorists attacks on 11^th of March, 2004 in Spain. These were as terrible and traumatic to the Spaniards as 9/11 was to Americans. However, there are no significant deviations visible on the graph from that day (nor the previous day). The experiments with people consciously concentrating on changing the output of a box seem more convincing because it is easier to set up such an experiment in a proper, scientific way.

Nevertheless, I think people should look more closely at the ancient wisdom that seems to describe our reality so well.