Does reading about spirituality make any sense?
Jeroen
Not all those who wander are lostNetherlands Veteran
Lately I have been wondering whether reading about spirituality actually helps you in any way. Over the last fifteen years I have been reading almost exclusively about spirituality — I dropped almost all tv, the news, games, magazines and papers, fiction — and have covered many authors, from Osho to Thich Nhat Hanh to Sogyal Rinpoche to Tony Parsons. And while many things fell away in the beginning, over the last five years I don’t feel changed or closer to the further shore.
I feel a bit like the Swami in this story…
“A swami came to visit me. He was eighty years old and had quite a few followers. He came into satsang and said to me, please don’t talk to me about Yoga, I have read all the books and know all of that. So I said, that’s fine, I won’t talk about Yoga. But what about all the other things you’ve brought with you, all those other methods and techniques? Let me help you carry them outside, then you can come in again without them. So I helped him to the door, and he stood outside for maybe five minutes, turning this way and that. Then he came in and said, it’s amazing. Later one of his students came to me and asked, what have you done to the swami? He has rejected all dharma’s.”
— H. W. L. Poonja
I have said in the past that spiritual books help you keep a certain spiritual focus. That may be true in the beginning of your journey, but I am not so sure whether it is helpful once you’ve reached a certain ripeness.
It’s as if all the methods in the books don’t really help beyond a certain point, and lately I have just felt moved by the YouTube videos of Vladimir of the ‘Increasing Frequency’ channel. These are a kind of travel vlogs, very heartfelt, in which he visits tempels and pilgrimage places in the mountains of India and Nepal. In sympathy with him I have started taking cold showers first thing in the morning, and the first dip of my head under the cold stream gives me a kind of sense of not-being.
Maybe I will start paying more attention to that. “Enter Zen from there.”
Comments
I know of three examples of spiritual aspirants voraciously reading for decades, learning nothing, before starting meditating/contemplating/self-inquiring in earnest, and eventually finding what they were looking for.
1) Our very own but deceased @genkaku. Feel free to read the second post in the following thread.
https://newbuddhist.com/discussion/19752/please-cast-your-mind-back#Comment_366610
2) Bob Harwood (interviews available on Youtube) who read about Zen for 20 years trying to answer a long list of questions, learned nothing, then started meditating and had a kensho-type experience within 5 months. Over the next 15 years all his questions were answered.
3) Art Ticknor (not a Buddhist, interviews also available on Youtube) who also read for 20 years. When his teacher did not respond to a letter he sent he concluded: 'he's lost hope in me'. A 7 year depression ensued during which he closed all the books with the view that 'understanding won't get me there, but I don't know of any other method'. The depression ultimately lifted (by reading a paragraph from a book!) but he proceeded with earnest self-inquiry and eventually found what he was looking for.
So, for a certain type of aspirant, maybe the intellectual type, maybe voracious reading is a necessary phase. However, I've never heard of someone finding what they were looking for from books. Maybe sutra-monks like Bhikhu Bodhi are such examples?
Feel free to drop the books. No harm done. You would not be the first one. With a bit of time, some kind of action will take the place of the reading. IMHO, that is a more expedient way.
Yes, it makes sense, but only if the text is not overly intellectualised. (thinking too much about concepts instead of engaging with them directly.)
When the intellect ventures into where it does not belong, it becomes lost in its own confusion
Thus have I heard, and to a degree, experienced.
The foundations of the Buddhist path are the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.
It important not to over-intellectualise these teachings. When beginning to practise, it helps to approach them in a way that suits your personal understanding.
Over time, rough patches tend to smooth out, and a deeper experiential understanding naturally emerges.
Reading Dharma texts can help kick-start the practice, but eventually they are needed only occasionally, to help refine and clarify, while the heart of the practice is lived experience.
I think engaging with the words and speech of wise, compassionate people does have some influence on our minds.
However, teachings and words are the finger pointing to the moon and its important to engage in practice so they are able to actually get us to the destination.
There comes a time when you have to stop 'doing' and start 'being'.
I am not unfamiliar with meditation, but I find it triggering to meditate for long periods. So I just do short sessions… it seems likely that meditation is not the answer for me.
But in being there is at the root love, and feeling. That is what I am exploring.
Reading about spirituality does not produce sprituality.
Spirituality is NOT an intellectual, cognitive, nor verbal activity. It is an activity that arises from mindful awareness of THIS moment, Here and Now ... only. The purpose of meditation is to train our mind TO be mindful, but the insights come when we can recapture that mindfulness when NOT meditating.
But meditation is WORK and if reading about spirituality helps motivate you TO do your meditation, then reading about spirituality is helpful .. even though it doesn't do anything itself.
“Nirvana is beyond concepts.” Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, “What Makes You (Not) a Buddhist”
“There is nowhere to arrive except the present moment.” Thich Nhat Hanh
“To be enlightened is to be completely here and now, completely alert and available for the Present, because that is the only place you are ever going to BE in”. Alan Watts