Translated by Brian Bruya

What do you believe and how strongly do you believe it?

For awhile, a fad sped through the people I was hanging with called the belief-o-meter, a cool little diagnostic tool – you answered a few questions and it told you which spiritual practice was best aligned with your beliefs.* At the time, I was meditating every day for up to 15 minutes and trying to apply a sort of Buddhist philosophy towards work and the people who were driving me crazy there.** I was reading Pema Chodron and Thich Nhat Hanh daily. I practiced yoga and simplicity.

Imagine my surprise when the belief-o-meter came back and told me I was most aligned with… Liberal Quakerism. I never did anything about that, not even exploring it for a moment. We believe what we believe and that’s what is important. Not what we call our religion or what we call our god.

I have nothing against organized religion, per se; it serves the purpose of providing a community, a place where you can meet people and make friends who share your values, and organize together to perform service toward others in reflection of those values. (Something sadly lacking these days.) But sometimes people feel trapped by a religion that doesn’t reflect their values: perhaps the spiritual leader has perverted the organization, using it to further their personal gains or vices; perhaps the values that the organization is demonstrating have veered from the precepts that it espoused when you joined or were brought up in it as a child; perhaps you no longer feel welcome.

At the end of They Are Already Here (Sarah Scoles’ exploration of alien belief in the US), she mentions that, at age 18, she was “a very religious person, an ultra-devout Mormon” but then she had a “crisis in faith” and left “not just this church but all churches… [and] had to grapple with what ‘be a good person’ meant to me – not to some god.” And it struck me that, with mainstream religion declining in the US, many people have given up religion but have also given up on figuring out what “being a good person” means to them. Instead they are hitching their wagon to the flashiest object: a new way of eating, a political movement, Taylor Swift. Nothing against Taylor Swift, enjoy her music and appreciate her business sense. But will following Taylor’s every move and heaping adoration (or scorn, if that’s your thing) on her really make your life any better?

There is a Zen kōan: If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.*** This is often taken to mean, Don’t look to others for your enlightenment; just keep practicing. Even way back when the Zen kōans were being developed, humans were doing what we always do: chasing the latest distraction in the hopes that it would save us. Buddhism asks that, instead of looking outside ourselves for deliverance, we practice letting go.

In William Powell’s introduction to Zen Speaks, he describes a 9th Century Zen master who said “the people of his time were encumbered by idol knowledge.” This led to “three forms of defilement.” “The first is defiled views,” having a fixed view of the world that causes you to fall “into a sea of poison.” The second, “defiled emotions…. entrapment in preferences and repulsions, thus having one’s perspective become one-sided and rigid.” The third, “defiled language. Mastering trivia and losing sight of the essential.” In other words: social media.

I’ve read that the latest fad amongst Gen Alpha is choosing flip phones over smart phones. It gives me hope for the future.

Zen speaks packages the precepts of Zen into approachable comics like this one:

It tells the story. Oh, you say like my mother listening to a dirty joke, I get it. But then it keeps coming back to you and you keep thinking about it and eventually – boom! – a little exclamation point appears in the thought bubble above your own head and you really do get it: enlightenment!

If you can get your hands on a copy of Zen Speaks, I recommend adding it to your collection. It’s adorable. Just be careful, you may learn something.

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*You can try it here: https://www.beliefnet.com/entertainment/quizzes/beliefomatic.aspx.

**With limited success. They still drove me crazy but I was more philosophical about it.

***Please don’t kill Taylor Swift. It’s not her fault you’re obsessed with her. Just kill your obsession itself.