enlightenment in the second language

It's a copy-paste from a book by Erich Fromm and T. Suzuki, "Psychoanalisis and Zen", (bad translations in fact).


The routine, a destructive or idolizing attitude, greed for property of fame, a quest, admiration; those compensate with the inherent and potential depression in any person. When these compensations break off, mental health is threaten.

The awareness of oneself creates a problem, a question: how to overcome the suffering, the feeling of being in a trap, the experience created by experiencing the rupture; how to find the union inside ourselves, towards other human beings and nature?

The ball rolling on the floor and a baby throwing it again and again with surprise and joy; however the adult recognizes the ball-object and the floor-object and the propierty of round things rolling on the floor and sighs with relief at the confirmation that everything keeps working as expected.



In Fromm words: the quest for balance in oneself, with others and nature (maybe with his help, or the help of a therapist) goes into the same direction as the buddhist quest for enlightenment; he puts it in a way that a buddhist would probably agree with and hardly any western would be surprised about: that's the second language.

The second language (it's still about the hippies, more boring somehow)

Fist of all I must say I have never understood how the ideas of philosophers, writers, scientists and even poets end up being part of everybody's way of thinking. I have no idea how it happens, since some of those thinkers are so difficult to understand, and it is nearly impossible to read their books (e.g. Kant's, who is meant to be the one who "killed" metaphysics).

Anyway let's assume it just happens: it is obvious that in the West in modern times people are rationalistic. Some of them might believe in god but clearly there's a split: religion is not anymore a way to explain how is it the world keeps turning, nor how are people supposed to behave; it is just about god and the soul and that kind of grey subject that science can hardly say anything about.

Since metaphysics were killed, whenever it was, a "second language" developed: it belongs to psychology and psychoanalysis, and anthropology, and sometimes to philosophy, and it is useful to talk about certain deep aspects of the human being. There are concepts that before belonged to religion, e.g. "redemption" or "enlightenment", which are now explained in a rationalistic way through that second language. (I'll put the example for enlightenment in another post soon.)


Then: there is a second language managing some concepts which used to be addressed by religion, and that second language somehow is now in everybody's mind.


At the same time, western religions are in a low, and some people look around for alternatives to fulfil their "spiritual needs". Some of them find it in the East, and become the hippies, and some others become "the more serious seekers". And the point is: they search in the ancient eastern religions and they read everything using the second language (and that language has a strong influence in their understanding).

As a result: a big mess (good or bad who knows). Mystics are not hardliners anymore -they are indulgent. Hippies and particularly "the more serious seekers" practice half an hour of meditation (detachment) before going to the office.


Looking at it from the outside, it is a mess: what are those new mystics?

Are they like the old ones? -meaning they are going to renounce to everything material so that they get closed to the divine, and maybe torture themselves?

If they are not like the old ones, what are they doing? -inventing a new system of believe from the old traditions, but completely unrelated at the same time?

the new hippies' series: (5) spiritual materialism

There's a Tibetan author who has lived for quite some time in the U.S. and has put a name to it: "spiritual materialism". It means not only a certain crave from spiritual stuff and a tendency to collect and accumulate small (unrelated) pieces from this and that Eastern tradition; also, according to the author, there would an egoistic approach on every Western person when trying to acquire or apply the new knowledge -even with a teacher, no matter what they were shown, the students would imitate it externally, being careful not to sacrifise or loose anything inside.

The guy puts an example that I really enjoy: he talks about a sort of Zen meditation of a certain Japanese tradition, in which the students are confined and they have to take care of their tools and the way to eat the food and drink the tea, and the whole point is to get people immensely tired so that the process might help them to get a "better understanding of the self" (or whatever is the point of the Zen, I must say I don't know much about it). Anyway, there's been of course Western students trying this technique but finding it completely useless: by following the procedures and the ceremonies they don't get bored and tired, the contrary, they get amused since they're doing Japanese stuff in a Japanese way which is so exciting!


First time I read a book from this one author I was in North India in a Buddhist area and it looked to me he was describing so well most (not all) the hippies around who where half spirituals and dressing that way of theirs (see previous posts) and bowing in front of the Buddha images when visiting the monasteries.

It seemed quite reasonable to me when the writer was recommending to everybody who had honest interest in spirituality to put themselves on the hands of a teacher and follow him/her and the teachings and techniques all the way through, leaving no room for "materialism" anymore.


Afterwards I read more about the guy, about his schools in the U.S., and eventually (there's reports and at least one essay on the subject) I learned they made big parties on the premises and the teacher encouraged sexual exchange among his students, and was he getting laid himself with some of the female students -maybe he just wanted to make sure they would follow their advice.

(It was denounced by some of the novices who attended to one of the parties and were not so happy with it; however it does not matter much, who would believe they did not know anything about it until they were asked to get naked?)


It's a pity, because I used to like the writings of this monk, I found them precise to the point and refined and awesome, but now to my eyes he has lost all his credibility. Regardless, there's still a lot to learn from this author, since it seems he was so good and understood the minds of his Western students fully, and knew how to get lots of hippies to apply to his courses!

the new hippies' series: (4) working the least

Not that I'm going to criticise anybody who does not like working, of course not. Old and new hippies and myself.

Some of them find their way through, they work a few months in overpriced Europe while they are living humbly (even in a squat), and during the rest of the year they go abroad anywhere cheap and make good value of their money. Others are just stingy and think twice before spending every cent.

My flatmate last summer, for example, she was a bit like that. We were not really organized when we had to buy something for the house (e.g. soap, toilet paper); one of us just got it whenever either she or I found it was missing. Gradually I realised she would not find anything missing, she just waited. I wanted to be sure and I devised a stupid experiment.

In India I learnt toilet paper is not really necessary -there's billions of people in Asia who do not use it. (There was this Israeli guy I met who asked the key question: if you found you had some shit on you forehead, how would you clean it?) Which method is best I'm not sure, regardless I got used to the other one in India, and in particular I didn't mind at all if I was sitting (as I always do) before my shower. However in Europe there's toilet paper and I use it (besides it's usually the jar which is missing). Some people find this whole subject is just digusting; that's not the point though. My experiment was: I would stop using paper if as usual I was in need just before my shower. Just to see what would happened.

What happened? The paper got finished and everything seemed fine for a few days. She was unemployed at that period (I was working like hell by the way), and I checked she went to the shop at least once to buy food. I don't know exactly how she was managing (I guessed she was using tissues). Finally, on Saturday mid morning, I realised I was having loose bellows and I went to the shop and I got the effing paper.

I would have talked to her if all the mess was about anything, not about a couple of euros. If I was not about to leave. And anyway my objective was to understand if she was as stingy as I had imagined. It seems she was.


This girl was taking short-term contracts very happily (the ones that others would take only because they cannot get a better one), so that at the end she could live from unemployment benefits for a while afterwards. She only looked for a new job when the time would come the state stopped paying. Which is not so bad, in my opinion, unless you make it a way of life. Unless you make it as if you are holding a day more waiting for your flatmate to get the paper (instead of you getting it).

There's hippies and hippies, there's the ones with the nice arrangements, and there's the stingy ones.