Layer 24 Chopping Wood, Carrying Water, and the Ox-Herding Pictures

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Here are more quotations from Zohar and Marshall’s ‘Spiritual Intelligence’.

"The mystics of every great tradition have spoken of something within the self. It is the pure light that shines or burns within us. Spoken of in such terms, the centre sounds awe-inspiring, attractive and holy - but perhaps too abstract for many of us to grasp. Yet each of us lives it and experiences it when we live our daily lives in a spiritually intelligent way.

It is the feeling of holiness in everyday objects and events, the sense of the sacred in an act of loving, the almost unbearable ecstasy we feel when understanding something deeply for the first time, the sense of elation when we bring something new into the world, the sense of deep satisfaction when we see justice done, the deep sense of peace when we know that that which we serve also serves ‘God’.

All six of the spiritual paths lead to the centre, to an experience that could be called ‘enlightenment’. But when lived in the most spiritually intelligent way possible all paths also lead from the centre, back to the world. The Buddha returned to the world so that all might become enlightened.

An ordinary person high in SQ does not just seek the bliss of knowing the centre, but responds to it spontaneously and then takes responsibility for bringing back to share with the world the light he has seen, the energy he has gained, the integrity he has experienced. He becomes an enlightened parent, an enlightened teacher, an enlightened cook, an enlightened lover, and so on.

None of us is really complete, really whole, really enlightened, until we have found a creative way to live, to love deeply and without selfishness, to serve our fellows, to be ‘servant leaders’.

The high SQ or enlightenment that we achieve has about it the incredible grace of the everyday. In Zen Buddhism there is a saying, ‘Before I was enlightened, I hewed wood and drew water. After enlightenment, I hewed wood and drew water.’ This is not saying that enlightenment does not bring progress and transformation, but rather that real transformation is to bring us back to the place from which we started, only now to live it fully alive and aware.

In A Manual of Zen Buddhism, D.T. Suzuki reproduces some fifteenth-century versions of ten original twelfth-century Chinese drawings, with accompanying texts, that illustrate the Zen understanding of enlightenment. They use the allegory of a man herding an ox.

All paths lead to and from the centre. Following them is a quest, but at a certain point realising them is an act of surrender. Even the craving to become enlightened eventually disappears."

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I strongly recommend reading Zohar and Marshall’s book.

It’s interesting that they include in it the entire sequence of the Ox-Herding pictures.

The Ox-Herding pictures are brilliant. To me they represent the process of discovering a thing called Zen, wanting to seek its goal of enlightenment, and after much study and practice starting to understand the central idea of Zen, and how to live a Zen life, which is indeed possible for anyone who is prepared to spend some time studying and reflecting on Zen thought. I first came across the pictures several years ago, and  appreciated what a superb metaphor they are. My understanding of the story is as follows.

* A young man decides to seek enlightenment, or his true self, as represented by the Ox.
* At first he sees only the footprints of the ox, or impressions and signs of what the ox (Zen enlightenment, his authentic self) might be like and where it may be found.
* Finally he sees the ox itself, and has a clear sight of the form of the body, the way it moves, etc. But it is still away in the distance.
* After some time he manages to approach the ox, and tries to hold on to it and tame it, to make it his own. However he realises that the ox is too powerful, and will only go with him if it chooses to.
* After training himself, and becoming familiar with the ways of the ox, he is ready to approach it in the right spirit of gentleness, friendship and respect.
* The ox allows him to ride on his back, and takes him back to his village.
* The ox then disappears, and the young man wonders whether the ox is after all an illusion. His life, and the whole of life, suddenly seems empty.
* He then realises that the whole of existence is an illusion, and that it is pointless to want to ‘possess’ the ox, or even stay with it, to be obsessive and possessive of the ox.
* He now sees himself as the fool on the hill, as someone who has foolishly considered that one may possess wisdom, or wealth, or power, or enlightenment. Everything depends on living each day as well as possible, and recognising the joy and bliss of everyday reality. He understands that real enlightenment consists of living life humbly, simply, unconcerned with possessions, status, salvation, etc.
* He now comes down from his hill, goes back into society, and lives amongst the people, trusting that his behaviour and attitude will bring support, encouragement and inspiration to those he meets, happy to serve others and happy to live an ordinary life, fully aware of how precious it is. To be back where he started, but now living life fully alive and aware.

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This is what D.T. Suzuki says in a book called Living By Zen, in a chapter called Approaches To Satori:

“The study of Zen requires great intellectual integrity and strength of character. The persistent pursuit of one task is no easy business, especially when this involves the disregarding of worldly affairs. But unless it is sustained by great spiritual aspirations, the study of Zen will be impossible.

“The separation of ourselves from the all-embracing, all submerging “ocean” [of life] is the function of the intelligence, for it is because of this that we crave for the water of life. Here lies the great spiritual tragedy of man; the water of life is desired, and this water surrounds him, soaks him, enters into every fibre and every cell of his tissues, is indeed himself, and yet he does not realise it and seeks it outside of himself, even beyond the “great ocean”. [The quest for heaven and an ‘afterlife’.]

“The intelligence is a great mischief-worker, and yet without it we shall never be able to wake up the greater one. It separates us from the ocean in which we live; if not for this separation we should be found forever slumbering under the waves, unseeing and ignorant. The only trouble is, as Gensha says, that we look for “the great ocean” in words, concepts, and their various combinations, and the result is that we know nothing and understand nothing.”

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All of this argues for the need to use to use all of our intelligences in combination, and only by doing so can we find Zen and live a life of enlightenment. Only by using all of our senses, plus our powers of intuition and empathy, plus our instincts and our passion, as well as our intellects, can we become fully ourselves, become self-actualised, become at one with ourselves and others, and with the cosmos.

Learning to do this is the challenge facing each and every one of us, and facing our society. So far, very few of us seem to understand this. Why indeed should we - when our schools, our media, and our so-called leaders are themselves generally ignorant of these truths? Or if they do recognise these truths then they pay them very little attention, preferring instead to attend to mainly material goals and the things that seem to be important in achieving those material goals.

It’s as though the human race has never moved on from scrabbling for survival, spending every day seeking food and shelter, concerned only with material security and well-being. And yet even so-called primitive humans, through their immediate connection with nature and its majesty, and having time to appreciate it in all its awe and wonder, probably possessed higher degrees of spiritual intelligence and enlightenment and happiness than we do.

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Interestingly, Suzuki uses the word “actualisation” in Living By Zen. Given that he wrote it back in the nineteen forties, I wonder whether Maslow acquired the word and the concept from Suzuki and Zen?

This is what Suzuki wrote in the chapter on satori, on pages 54 and 55:

“Zen is not interested so much in conceptualisation as in “existential thinking”, so-called. Satori is said to take place when consciousness realises a state of “one thought”, which is ichinen in Japanese, and is the shortest possible unit of time.

“When time is reduced to a point with no durability, it is ‘absolute present’ or ‘eternal now’. From the point of view of existential thinking, this ‘absolute present’ is no abstraction; it is, on the contrary, alive with creative vitality. Satori is the experience of this fact

“The ‘eternal now’ is the absolute point of time where there is no past left behind, no future waiting ahead. Satori stands at this point, where potentialities are about to actualise themselves. Satori does not come out of death [i.e. it's not in ‘heaven’]; it is at the very moment of actualisation. It is in fact the moment itself, which means that it is life as it lives itself. "

Layer 23 Zen and the Art of Everything

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The thing I’m most preoccupied with is explaining Zen to myself - with making it clear and intelligible - and being able to pass on that understanding to others. I want my own children to understand it, and therefore I’d like everyone to benefit from that understanding. I think I’ve had some intuitive awareness of Zen for some time, and have benefitted from that awareness, but I want to be able to describe it within a clear and logical framework of understanding.

I believe that Zen is the ultimate expression of enlightenment, and that enlightenment is desirable and necessary for everyone individually and for all of us collectively.

Zen is being able to live life spontaneously and creatively and passionately, with freedom from doubt, and freedom from anxiety about the future. This can happen when we are on track towards greater awareness and greater enlightenment. We put ourselves on that track when we are habitually using and developing all of our intelligences and living fully in three dimensions.

We live in three dimensions when we’re not flattened or constrained by life and living on a single plane of existence. When only two out of the three intelligences (IQ, EQ, SQ) are properly developed and functioning then we will have access to only one of the three Planes of Being, as I’m proposing we call them - the Plane of Knowing, the Plane of Feeling, and the Plane of Imagination.

Mathematically this is interesting - when one axis is missing then only one plane of functioning is accessible. But when there are three axes then this immediately opens up the accessibility of two more planes. In other words, there are dire consequences in not offering our children the possibility of growth in three dimensions.

Zen is a daily diet of something for the head, something for the heart, and something for the hands, for the entire body. Intellect, emotions and spirit. Zen is about balance. Zen is making time in every day - for thinking, for meditating, for reading and studying, for communicating, for laughing, for loving, for sleeping and dreaming, for imagining, for being creative, for socialising, for using our bodies and being active, for using our senses, for experiencing joie de vivre - sheer joy in living.

Zen is about seeing this life as being a cup or a glass that is at least half full, and not focusing on the half empty and giving it too much attention. If we have all of the above elements, or even some of them, in our daily lives, then we must surely have the feeling of life as being at least half full. And we should be giving thanks for that. Zen is about joyful living, and not taking life for granted.

Joie de vivre is about enthusiasm and passion for living, and it’s also about being still and experiencing satori, which is a state of deep relaxation, joyfulness, contentment and bliss. Life is always perfect in the sense that when all of our basic needs have been met then we approach the state of self-actualisation, and we accept that life’s challenges are to be welcomed. They are merely challenges and not threats. So why worry?

Of course we must deal with things that actually threaten us, but if we have a high degree of security and comfort then other sorts of challenge are opportunities to develop our IQ, EQ and SQ, and must be seen as positives rather than negatives. We don’t grow intellectually, emotionally, inter-personally, intra-personally, spiritually, physically, creatively and psychologically unless we engage with challenges, and also challenge ourselves. So why complain about life being full of challenges? Do we not welcome growth?

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I’ve been re-reading some of Zohar & Marshall’s book “Spiritual Intelligence - The Ultimate Intelligence” with a bit of a critical eye. It now seems to me that they don’t have what I feel inclined to call a Zen sensibility, and have more of a mystical and perhaps a Hindu type of perspective. Buddhism grew out of Hinduism. Zen grew out of Buddhism.

I see Zen as being logical and clearly explicable in terms of how our minds, bodies and spirits demonstrably operate, and not at all mystical, and nothing to do with gods or a God, though life may ultimately be a mystery.

Danah Zohar & Ian Marshall, whom I admire enormously for their work on spiritual intelligence, seem to see spiritual intelligence as some sort of deep inner heart of a flower which you find when all of its sepals and petals have been peeled away. Whereas I see it as one of three equally important intelligences that are essential to proper human functioning, and not at the top of a hierarchy or at the centre or the very heart of something. To me, IQ, EQ and SQ are simply three axes, all interlocking and all at right-angles, as it were, to one another.

I see Zen, not spiritual intelligence, as a word and a concept that’s capable of being described as the ultimate intelligence, in that I see it as a circle, or a halo, or a sphere of energy surrounding the sphere of the other 3 intelligences. The degree of Zen we possess and the size of its circle or halo, or whatever, depends on the length and strength of our three axes of intelligence - the extent to which we have developed them, engaged with them and habitually used them as we live and learn. Zen is only a perfect circle or sphere if we possess, develop, enlarge and use all of our intelligences, all three axes.

Zen is above all about just Being. Not being anything special, or different, or wonderful. Just being all that we potentially can be and ought to be. Just being what nature intended, and living life in harmony with our own natures and nature all around us. Surely just Being is a big enough challenge? To be enlightened is to become our true natural selves. And that’s not easy.

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An interesting and perplexing aspect of their work in “Spiritual Intelligence” is Zohar & Marshall’s highlighting of the importance of the imagination, and then failing to really follow through on why and how it’s important. I really wanted to hear something about the practicalities of developing and using imagination to enable us to function better, both individually and collectively.

For instance, they say, on page 154, “In modern psychological terms we might best associate the centre of the self with the source of human imagination, with that deep place within the self from which we dream, or conceive the impossible or the not-yet-existent. In Zen Buddhism the centre is deeper still, a place beyond all imagining . . .

“The centre is a source within ourselves that is replete and inexhaustible and is itself the heart of some wider, perhaps sacred or divine reality. It is at once that which nourishes us and that through which we nourish our own creativity.”

To me, the centre of the self is simply the place where IQ, EQ and SQ intersect at right angles. All three intelligences are potentially engaged in any act of creativity. I don’t see this as being deep or mystical. It’s just logical and sensible, if you accept that there indeed are these three linked and intersecting continuums of intelligence, that is.

Creativity normally requires thought, intuition, passion, instinct, the use of the senses, and empathy. It also derives from Knowing, Feeling and Imagination.

The Plane of Imagination, as I see it, is very distinct from the Planes of Knowing and Feeling, which are to do with WHAT IS, rather than WHAT MIGHT BE. Imagination primarily concerns a combination of our intuition, our senses, our passion, and our empathy with others, and with our surroundings.

Zohar & Marshall quote from John Guarre’s Six Degrees of Separation:

“One of the great tragedies of our time is the death of the imagination. Because what else is paralysis?
I believe that the imagination is the passport we create to take us into the real world. [It] . . . is what is most uniquely us.
To face ourselves. That’s the hard thing. The imagination [is] God’s gift to make the act of self-examination bearable. [It] teaches us our limits and how to grow beyond our limits . . . the imagination is the place we are all trying to get to . . .”

Now to me this is pretty much gobbledegook. I can see that paralysis might be the product of a failure to look beyond what already exists and see what might be in the future. It’s pretty hopeless feeling and knowing that there’s a lot wrong with oneself and with the world if you can’t even begin to imagine something better. Even when people explain it to you.

But imagination is not so much a place we’re trying to reach as an aspect of our intelligences that needs to be strong and active alongside our ability to know and our ability to feel. It’s also a vital component of creativity.

Zohar & Marshall go on to conclude, “Our deepest salvation may lie in serving our own deep imagination”.

But what does this mean? Yes - imagination is an absolutely key aspect of human development and human intelligence. But the word ‘salvation’ is in itself highly problematic as far as I’m concerned, and is the product of the type of religious sensibility that lives in fear of hellfire and damnation, or fear of condemnation to the wheel or cycle of whatever.

Why not just say, as a humanist would - not working from a deficit model - that imagination (alongside of, and working with, knowing and feeling) is one of the three keys to self-actualisation, to becoming the very best we can become?

As an educationalist first and foremost I would then have to say, what the hell are we doing in our schools when we pay little or no attention to nurturing and developing children’s imagination, when we fill up all available time with Facts and with Knowing, and when we do everything that’s guaranteed to strangle, stifle and suppress Imagination?

Layer 20 Fully Evolved Humans

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A Positive View of Human Potential

If we’re successful in helping children to develop personal, social, emotional and spiritual intelligences, where does it all lead? What do fully evolved human beings look like?

The humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow studied people whom he regarded as exceptional human beings, and described the characteristics of ‘self-actualised’ people. The actualisation process means the development or discovery of the true self and the development of existing or latent potential.

• They tend not to be overly religious in the orthodox sense of the word, but have a belief in a meaningful universe and a life which could be called spiritual. Their ideas of right and wrong are based on their own experience rather than blind acceptance of social conventions. Nevertheless, the characteristics of self-actualised HBs are very similar to the ideals and values taught by the great religions - “the transcendence of self, the fusion of the true, the good and the beautiful, contribution to others, wisdom, honesty and naturalness, the transcendence of selfish, greedy and personal motivations . . . the decrease of hostility, cruelty and destructiveness; the increase of friendliness, kindness, etc”
• Fully developed individuals have a kind of humility - the ability to listen carefully to others, to admit that they don’t know everything, and an understanding that other people can teach them something.
• The self-actualised perception is less distorted by desires, anxieties, fears, hopes and false optimism or pessimism.
• Self-actualizing people are dedicated to some work, task, duty or vocation which they consider to be important.
• Creativity is a universal characteristic of a self-actualised person. Creativeness is almost synonymous with health, self-actualization, and full humanness. Characteristics associated with this creativity are flexibility, spontaneity, courage, willingness to make mistakes, openness and humility. This creativity is similar to the creativity of children before they have learned to fear the ridicule of others, while they are able to see things clearly and freshly.
• Self-actualizing people are less inhibited, and therefore more expressive, natural and simple. They are self confident and have self respect. They lack the fear of making mistakes and their flexibility allows them to be able to change as situations change; they are able to break habits, to face indecision and changes without undue stress.
• A characteristic of the self-actualized person is the low degree of self conflict. The more they become unified as an individual the more they see the possibility for more unity in the world.
• These people find happiness in helping others. They enjoy their work, and they enjoy play; their work becomes play.
• They have respect for themselves based on the knowledge that they are competent and adequate. They rely fully on their own capacities. They are the most individualistic members of society and at the same time the most social, friendly and loving. They are governed far more by inner directives - their own nature - and natural needs than by those of their society or their environment. They are less needful of praise, honours, prestige or rewards.
• Self-actualizers have ‘psychological freedom’. They do not need or value unwarranted fame, celebrity or notoriety. They have a feeling of power in the sense that they have a feeling of self-control. They have control of themselves and their destinies; they are not afraid of themselves, ashamed of themselves, or discouraged by their mistakes. It is not that they are perfect; they make mistakes too, but they take them in their stride.
• They are able to make their own decisions - even in the face of contrary popular opinion. They resist their surrounding culture when it does not accord with their own point of view. They can become extremely independent and unconventional when they feel their basic principles are involved.
• For these individuals self-discipline is relatively easy because what they desire to do agrees with what they believe is right. They are responsible because they believe responsibility is rewarding.
• Whereas average humans are motivated by making good their perceived and actual deficiencies in their lives (coping behaviour) - seeking to fulfil basic needs for safety, love, respect and self-esteem - self-actualised individuals are focused mainly on their need to develop their higher potentialities, capacities and intelligences.
• Maslow believed that the term motivation did not really apply to the most mature individuals. They are spontaneous, they are doing what is natural; they are merely expressing themselves.
• They have a deep feeling of kinship with the whole human race. They are capable of friendship with people regardless of race, creed, class, education or political beliefs. “This acceptance of others cuts across political, economic and national boundaries.”
• On the other hand, their circle of friends is usually quite small, involving others who are similar in outlook and ability. They can be very tolerant of others’ shortcomings, and yet they are very intolerant about dishonesty, lying, cheating, cruelty, and hypocrisy. Healthy individuals tend to seek people with similar character traits, such as honesty, sincerity, kindliness and courage. They are less attracted by superficial characteristics and more attracted by someone’s emotional, intellectual and spiritual qualities.
• Healthy individuals are not without problems - they too suffer moments of guilt, anxiety, sadness and self-doubt. Neither are they universally calm and free of temper outbursts. However, they generally exhibit joie de vivre, enthusiasm for life, and a good sense of humour. They enjoy laughter, and enjoy bringing smiles to the faces of others.
• Their relationships are never exploitative. Because they have great respect for themselves they are able to be more respectful to others. “The love that is found in healthy people,” said Maslow, “is much better described in terms of spontaneous admiration and the kind of receptive and understanding awe and enjoyment that we experience when struck by a fine painting.” These people need less love from others and are able to remain alone for long periods, but at the same time they are able to give love - they are more loving people.
• They are attractive and attracted to others, and find it easy to enjoy friendship and intimate relationships without fear. At the same time they are not afraid to be constructively critical of others, to be exponents of ‘tough love’ even, because they consider it to be unloving to let someone go on making the same mistake again and again just because other people don’t have enough courage or caring to tell them.
• Healthy individuals enjoy life more: not that they don’t have pain, sorrow, and troubles, just that they get more out of life. They appreciate it more; they have more interests; they are more aware of beauty in the world.
• They have less fear and anxiety, and more confidence and relaxation. They are far less bothered by feelings of boredom, despair, shame, or lack of purpose. “They spontaneously tend to do right, because that is what they want to do, what they need to do, what they enjoy, what they approve of doing, and what they will continue to enjoy.” This network of positive intercorrelation falls apart into separateness and conflict if someone becomes psychologically sick.
• Putting it another way, “Self-actualising people enjoy life in general and in practically all its aspects, while most other people enjoy only stray moments of triumph, of achievement, or of peak experience.” They never tire of life. They have the capacity to appreciate the sunrise or sunset or relationships or nature again and again.
• The healthy individual shows far less fear than the average adult. Lesser individuals are less influenced by truth, logic, justice, reality and beauty. Healthy individuals do not often feel threatened by the world around them, as they have great confidence in their ability to handle whatever confronts them. They are also unthreatened by the unknown and the mysterious. This is in sharp contrast to the neurotic person’s fear of the unfamiliar and the mysterious. Maslow quotes Albert Einstein as being typical of this fearless attitude: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and science.” Not only are mature self-actualising individuals less afraid of the external environment, they are also less afraid of themselves. They accept themselves and their natures philosophically, and give them far less consideration than neurotic people.
• People who are more mature and highly (self) developed have the ability to be objective, issue-centred or problem-centred, which involves a certain amount of personal detachment from the problem. Such an attitude, however, can be interpreted as coldness, aloofness, snobbishness, even hostility.
• They have an unusual ability to concentrate, which can cut them off from more mundane matters and lead to so-called absent-mindedness. Since they have fewer ‘problems’ of their own, they tend to be working to solve the problems of society; they have a mission in life. They are more concerned with ends rather than means.
• “They have for human beings in general a deep feeling of identification, sympathy and affection, in spite of the occasional anger, impatience and disgust . . . they have a genuine desire to help the human race.”
• According to Frank Goble, summarising Maslow’s work in his book The Third Force, the very best of humanity are sufficiently philosophical to be patient, and accept slow orderly change. They are apt to be both theoretical and practical.
• They want to see virtue rewarded and cruelty, exploitation and evil penalised. They take pleasure in rewarding, praising and recognising the talents of others.
• They have plenty of self-respect, they do not need love from everyone, and they are willing to make enemies if necessary.
• They also enjoy calm, peace, quiet and relaxation.
• They like to be efficient and effective, and dislike inefficiency. They manage to love the world as it is, while seeing its defects and working to improve them.
• Their excellent perception of reality enables them to see both the good and bad in each situation, and they enjoy solving problems and bringing order out of chaos.
• They are seldom mean or petty or inconsiderate of others, and are able to ignore their faults.
• They enjoy their work and strive to be more efficient, better, neater, simpler and faster.

Layer 19 The World Public Broadcasting Corporation

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I noticed this week that Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, which is about the physical degradation of the planet and the destruction of unique environments, is about to have a TV showing, on Sky Premier Movies. Seems strange that it hasn’t already been shown on public broadcasting TV around the world, given his passion for saving the planet. Maybe Al Gore is to making films what ‘ethical’ manufacturers are to manufacturing - they like the idea of doing good and being environmentally friendly, but profits come first. And here’s me thinking he wasn’t short of a few quid.

If the World Public Broadcasting Corporation were to make a film about Planet Earth in the 21st Century, for transmission to the rest of the universe, it might go like this:

Establishing shots:

Various faces of children around the world, both happy and sad; soldiers, armoured vehicles and aircraft unleashing incredible firepower against civilians and one another. Scenes of awesome beauty - sunrises and sunsets, mountains, gardens, forests and lakes. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre with their plumes of smoke, collapsing into rubble, and as they do so covering New York with vast clouds of dust and airborn debris. Families enjoying home life in various ways - laughing, playing, eating meals, sitting and walking in gardens and other places of great beauty, driving cars, watching TV. Traffic jams, factories, churches, temples and mosques. Various works of art, including paintings by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Picasso, Klimpt, Turner and Monet; sculptures by Hepworth, Moore, Picasso, Michelangelo and Rodin. Clips from quiz shows, soap operas, video games and films such as Apocalypse Now, The Terminator, Alien and Predator. People embracing, holding hands, kissing, smiling, making love, looking at one another adoringly. People shouting, arguing, punching, fainting, collapsing. Ambulances, police cars and fire engines speeding to emergencies. Streets full of demonstrators and protestors, libraries full of people silently reading, rooms full of computers where silent faces stare at screens. Bands performing, children playing trumpets, singers singing, drummers drumming, various instrumentalists reeling and rocking. Six different people wearing blindfolds, each touching a different part of an elephant, trying to describe it from his or her particular point of contact. Hurricanes blowing, floods rising, glaciers melting, the sun shining on beaches full of people sunbathing or lying in the shade under palm trees. Scenes of joy on Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, various festivals, a child’s birthday party. A nuclear explosion.

Voice over:

Good evening people of the universe. Planet Earth is a wonderful, beautiful, frightening, ugly, inspiring, uplifting, depressing and amusing place, depending on where you’re standing, what you’re looking at, who you’re listening to, and whether you have food to eat, money to spend, a proper home, security, friendship, peace and love in your life.

This programme’s aim is to show a balanced portrait of a unique planet, in all its glory and its misery, showing it how it is, and not trying to say whether any of it is good or bad, right or wrong. Is it wrong for big fish to eat little fish? For birds of prey to kill small mammals? We are not setting out to judge or even to comment. Feel free to comment on it as you wish. Our intergalactic email address will be given at the end of the film for you to send us your comments. Or your judgements. You can be the judge.

People of the Earth are ready to be judged on the state of our planet. We have made it as it is. We found it in a state of virginal innocence, and we have embraced it, worshipped it, treasured it, abused it, defiled it, injured it and tried to make it better again.

As human beings we have many strengths and many weaknesses. We have issues. We have problems. We are sometimes argumentative, selfish, aggressive, abusive and disrespectful. At our best we can be thoughtful, generous, creative, appreciative, loving, peaceful, sympathetic, and awesome in our ability to unlock the mysteries of the universe through science, mathematics, technology and the use of computers and other machines which are the products of our intellects and our capacity for cooperation, collaboration, innovation and ingenuity. We have the capacity for brilliance and for stupidity, and you will see the results of these wherever you look. It is inevitable that our behaviour will be both sublime and disgusting, since there are many people on this planet, in various states of ignorance, desperation, confusion and unhappiness, and also sublime, talented, gifted and awesomely enlightened.

We have educated people who are nevertheless hopelessly confused and ignorant, and we have unschooled people who are unbelievably wise and enlightened. We have clever fools and we have naïve savants and sages. It takes all sorts to make a planet. It takes a whole village to educate a child, and it takes a planet to educate the human race.

Our task at the World Public Broadcasting Corporation is to educate, inform, entertain and enlighten. We have many eyes and many voices. We have a multitude of viewpoints, explanations and opinions. During the course of this film you will hear them all. We will not only show you Planet Earth as it is, we will show it to you from many different perspectives, and we will invite you to reach your own conclusions and make your own judgements. Some say there is no one truth. But there is one truth that matters, and that is YOURS. See things our way - see things your way.

Having seen the truth what will you do about it? Are you able to help us? Planet Earth needs all the help it can get. We are in danger of destroying so much that is beautiful and meaningful on this planet. We are in danger of wiping ourselves out with nuclear weapons. If you’d like to help us in our quest to be a happy, peaceful, grateful, appreciative, positive and harmonious planet, please get in touch. Without help we may all perish. Without your help we may have to educate and enlighten ourselves, and we’re not very good at those things in spite of centuries of our best efforts. So please. Please, help. Get in touch. Come on down.

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Salvation Studies. Module 1.

Appealing to space beings for help is like looking to God for solutions to our problems on Earth. It’s not going to happen. Even if there were space beings or a God or gods in a position to enlighten us, support us, or offer us help, how on Earth would they go about it? Who would they go to see or speak to?

George Bush claims that God speaks to him. Many of us doubt it. Tony Blair thought he had a direct line to his Maker. Look what happened to him. Was Iraq a “failure of Intelligence” or a failure of intelligence? Or was God just having a laugh? Or was it arrogance and hubris on the part of men who thought they were hearing the voice of God, and maybe even thought they were somewhat godlike themselves, which is fair enough when they are treated that way by so many followers, believers and worshippers.

No. We have to do this thing ourselves. Our fate and our fortune is in our own hands. No space beings or gods or saviours or upper-class sons of millionaires or of the manse are going to do it for us. We, the People, have to do it for ourselves. We have the need, and what is more we have the capacity to enlighten ourselves, and to help one another become enlightened, and then to work together collectively on our own salvation, our own better, brighter, more brilliant future as individuals and as a planet.

And if we don’t do this thing for ourselves, as a species, then we don’t deserve any help, any salvation. To hell on a handcart, or to a much better place on vehicles of our own design and manufacture? The choice is ours. The journey is long. The way ahead is rocky and obscure. But we need to get together and get started. All aboard!

The point is that the answers are within. Each and every one of us has to look within and try to fathom out what we’re doing and where we should be going. Though we could start by paying attention to what some of our best thinkers and scientists and sages have said through the ages. To begin with we need a framework of values and ethics.

Maybe start with the Buddha - maybe the most ancient source of counsel and wisdom. Starting with his more modern translators and interpreters?

Then there are more recent scholars and researchers, people of sublime wit, integrity and vision - people who had the capacity to really observe the world truthfully and objectively.

Abraham Maslow was a brilliant researcher who had the insight that in order to better human beings we should start by developing our awareness of what the very best of our species actually look like, how they behave and what they accomplish. Not famous people - just so-called ordinary people who somehow stand out from the crowd.

The next blog, Layer 20, will be a summary of what Maslow noticed about human potential, about high functioning human beings, and what he described as “self-actualised” individuals.

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In the news today.

The Orwell Prize for best political writing. Won by a Palestinian human rights activist, Raja Shehadeh, for his book Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape. He describes the destruction of the beauty of the land, and the loss of the enjoyment of the land. Also the confinement of Palestinians to towns and villages. They are unable even to use the roads, which are now only for Israeli settlers.

Please read the first chapter of the book here: http://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/the-award/short-books/palestinianwalks.aspx

http://www.profilebooks.com/news.php?news_id=25
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The Value of Investing in Emotional, Social and Spiritual Intelligence.

Still more concern for anti-social behaviour, violence and crime. How to deal with difficult children? After Columbine, the US state of Colorado focused on prevention of mental and emotional sickness, not trying to ‘fix’ them at 16.

School based classes were developed, and anger management for children as young as 4 years of age. They are taught to understand their bodies and their emotions. There were no parental objections to ‘wishy-washy touchy-feely’ stuff ‘detracting’ from academic focus and attainment.

There has also been systematic family support for children growing up in violent homes. Outreach programmes were funded.

Through these various programmes and changes to the school curriculum they have saved millions of dollars in special education costs, plus reduced costs of healthcare and policing. They reckon 3 dollars have been saved for every dollar invested in early intervention.

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A brilliant anecdote on a Radio 4 programme (The Reunion) about Thompson Comics. A particular issue had one of the characters in the Dandy making his own fireworks. Someone from a government department wrote a letter to the comic warning them that it was illegal for individuals to make fireworks in this country. In the next issue the Dandy's editor printed a trailer for the following week, which just said, “Next week Desperate Dan will show you how to make an atomic bomb.”

Layer 18 The Nature of Reality. Redefining the Goal.

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Chapter 3 of Ancient Wisdom, Modern World is concerned with ‘dependent origination’ and ‘the nature of reality’. Broadly speaking I take these ideas to mean that we are not, in reality, independent individuals, and that all life, all phenomena, and every human being, are interlinked and interdependent. Within this context, all of our actions have consequences not only for ourselves but for others, and we are nothing ourselves without other people.

With this in mind, then time has no real meaning - there is only a NOW when past actions inform the present and when what we do at any given moment has consequences for the future - both for ourselves and for others; both positive and negative.

These ideas were touched on in Layer 1 of this blog.

In Chapter 3 the Dalai Lama says, “If the self had intrinsic identity, it would be possible to speak in terms of self-interest in isolation from that of others’. But because this is not so, because self and others can only really be understood in terms of relationship, we see that self-interest and others’ interests are closely interrelated.

Indeed, within this picture of dependently originated reality, we see that there is no self-interest completely unrelated to others’ interests. Due to the fundamental interconnectedness which lies at the heart of reality, your interest is also my interest. From this it becomes clear that ‘my’ interest and ‘your’ interest are intimately connected. In a deep sense they converge.”

“Particular causes lead to particular effects, and certain actions lead to suffering while others lead to happiness. Thus it is in everybody’s interests to do what leads to happiness and avoid that which leads to suffering. And because our interests are inextricably linked, we are compelled to accept ethics as the indispensible interface between my desire to be happy and yours.”

Chapter 4 - Redefining the Goal - deals with the nature of happiness - short term and long term.

Money and material things can only bring short-term happiness. Having a lot of money and a lot of material things can even create a state of constant anxiety about their possible loss, for example. There can be no hope of gratifying the senses permanently.

The principal characteristic of genuine happiness is inner peace. Flourishing mentally and emotionally makes a significant contribution to inner peace. So does the satisfaction of love, and in order to attain it we need friends and family who can return our affection.

Our basic attitude to life is a major factor in attaining inner peace. Life consists of both light and dark elements. We can see a glass, and indeed our life, as half full or half empty. A tendency to see it as at least half full is needed in order to attain inner peace.

The other major source of inner peace, and therefore genuine long-term happiness, are the actions we undertake day to day. There are actions which contribute positively to the inner peace of ourselves and others, and actions whose impact are negative - certainly in the long run - to both ourselves and others.

Positive actions can be either ‘ethical’ or ‘spiritual’.

“An ethical act is one where we refrain from causing harm to others’ experience or expectation of happiness. Spiritual acts we can describe in terms of qualities such as love, compassion, patience, forgiveness, humility, tolerance and so on which presume some level of concern for others’ well-being. We find that the (spiritual) actions we undertake which are motivated not by narrow self-interest but out of our concern for others actually benefit ourselves. And not only that, but they make our lives meaningful.”

“Because our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others’ happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure we do not harm others.”

“Genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, humility and so on. It is these which provide happiness both for ourselves and others.”

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Back in the mists of time I first became interested in human well-being as a subject in itself (what some people are now calling ‘happiness studies’) when considering the ideas of the humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow who maintained that people who achieve something like their full potential (in terms of being the best human being they can be) are ‘self-actualised’.

In recent times I’ve come to see such people as being ‘3 dimensional’ - fully developed in terms of spiritual intelligence (SQ), emotional intelligence (EQ), and intellect (IQ). These three dimensions also encompass physical intelligence, instinctual intelligence, social intelligence and metaphysical intelligence. Self-actualised individuals have all of these in abundance.

These ideas concerning three dimensionality and three continuums of intelligence have already been described in Layer 2.

Self-actualised people have travelled a long way along the path towards enlightenment, and they experience satori as a day to day reality. These ideas concerning enlightenment have been described in other recent blogs, recent Layers.

In Layer 20 I’ll summarise Maslow’s work and set out a description in terms of day to day behaviour and attitudes what it actually means to be self-actualised. We can then consider which types of behaviour and which attitudes correspond with which intelligences. We will then be able to judge the proportions of SQ, EQ and IQ that are engaged in the day to day lives of self-actualised individuals. We can then take a view on the relative importance of each of the three dimensions to individual and collective well-being, happiness and enlightenment.
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Materialism [In Our Time. Radio 4 (9.00am.)]

Melvyn Bragg, A.C. Grayling, and others.

Listening to this reminds me I need to get back to reading (and blogging about) Grayling’s 2003 book, What Is Good? The Search For The Best Way To Live, which can happen after I’ve finished Richard Layard’s Happiness - Lessons from a New Science. (2005)

Notes on the broadcast:

Materialists maintain that the only thing that exists is Matter.

The universe is fundamentally material in nature.

Epicurus said that materialism also applied to human nature. But whereas Aristotle believed in permanent substances, Epicurus didn’t.

He believed that humans should follow Pleasure - meaning tranquillity, serenity.

Lucretius believed the world consists of atoms - the basic stuff out of which everything is created.

Religion is mostly about fear and it oppresses people. If people realised they’re just atoms they wouldn’t worry about gods.

Aristotle saw nature as an interlocking system.

Purposes and intelligent design? Final causes? Opposite view to atomists and materialists.

Mind/soul/spirit = good? Matter = bad?
Christian doctrine was an espousal of this dualist view.

4th C Arian persecution. The Arians thought that ‘God is just a man’. They were wiped out for this view.

16th C Descartes. It’s possible to think about the material realm through science - to investigate this realm without impugning religion.

Galileo said that science is to do with quantifiable phenomena. Analysis of the world is a long way from common sense approaches. Science should be based on mathematics? Not an obvious idea.

Descartes and Gasendi - understanding the world through the senses. “There are only surfaces - not soul.” Injecting Epicurus into scientific debate.

The church’s doctrines had been dominant for centuries.

Hobbes espoused radical atomism. The only thing that exists are bodies.

Experiences produce thoughts and ideas in our brains. Consciousness is the ability to be aware of what’s happening.

There are no spiritual or immaterial realities. Hence the need to be atheist.

18th C saw the beginnings of the organised study of psychology and the phenomena of mind. We are still researching how consciousness arises. Our experience of the world is conditioned by our physiology and our psychology.

Issues of free will. Everything we do caused by anticedal states of affairs. Endless cause and effect. There is no freedom, fundamentally. Though we need our freedom to follow our desires.

The mind (memory) is a book that endlessly writes on itself. A Palimpsest. Layers. [See Layer 1]

We conceive ourselves as free moral beings. Whereas science proposes causal explanations.

Consciousness unifies disparate activities within the brain to create a unified sense of self.

The idea that there is a thing called soul or spirit that has ‘its’ own feelings, memories, desires, etc will fall away as we find proper explanations as to how the brain itself, of itself, gives rise to ‘mental’ phenomena.

No time on the programme to discuss Hegel, Marx and Quantum Physics!

If you missed the programme catch it on the BBC website - Listen Again.

Also Start The Week on R4 this week - another ‘must listen to’.

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A recent award for best individual contribution to radio went to Melvyn Bragg. And so say all of us In Our Time devotees.