Category Archives: Books

Books! Spiritual Intelligence in Seven Steps

Books

Developing a wisdom mindset involves IQ, emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence. An illustration posted here in 2015 shows how spiritual intelligence is integrated in the Gamma Tao. The illustration shows human intelligence as an interactive continuum in which we can distinguish specialised faculties.

IQ and emotional intelligence are established concepts to describe and even measure specific mental abilities, but what is spiritual intelligence? I have always left it open to imagination, but now Mark Vernon has written a new book about it: Spiritual Intelligence in Seven Steps. 

I discovered Mark Vernon on YouTube through his regular dialogues with Rupert Sheldrake and in 2021 I bought his book Dante’s Divina Commedia. A Guide for the Spiritual Journey, an excellent companion to this medieval masterpiece. 

Human intelligence vs AI

His new book on spiritual intelligence was initiated during an interdisciplinary project on artificial and human intelligence organized by the International Society for Science and Religion. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has invaded our daily lives in many ways and our dependence on AI algorithms will only grow, if we want to make sense of all the data available to us. These days we marvel at the the capacity of ChatGPT to answer all the questions we have. What role can human intelligence still play in the face of so much computing power? 

Mark Vernon, while embracing these new technologies, suggests that spiritual intelligence might provide an answer. He supposes that emotional intelligence could eventually be programmed into IA systems, spiritual intelligence however will remain a unique ability of Homo Spiritualis.

What is spiritual intelligence?

One of the reasons for this may be that spiritual intelligence is so hard to define, if it can or needs to be defined at all. Mark Vernon dedicates the first chapter of his book to give us an idea what spiritual intelligence might entail: a non-sensory perception or knowing “that our experience is connected to a wider vitality” that has been “given multiple names: fire, energy, soul, spirit, ground emptiness, meaning, power, Brahman, Tao, God, origen, source”. 

Spiritual intelligence also gives us a direction in life. It “invites us to turn back to the ground of our being and rebuild from there”. This ground, according to Vernon, is spiritual. We are all, as Sting would sing it, “spirits in a material world”. 

Perspectiva and the meta-crisis

The actual scope of the book is broader than distinguishing human intelligence from artificial intelligence. It addresses the general intellectual climate of our times, the shortcomings of scientific materialism and what has been called the “meaning crisis”.

I was pleasantly surprised to read that this book is supported by Perspectiva, a research institute that seeks to understand the relationship between systems, souls and society with a deeper understanding of the influence of our inner worlds to confront this meta-crisis. 

In November 2019 Perspectiva published Iain McGilchrist’s magnum opus The Matter with Things, probably one of the most important books on philosophy of our times. More recently Perspectiva became involved in the legacy of Rebel Wisdom, a YouTube channel and community that I have followed since the start. I was present at their “Last Campfire” when this news was announced. 

Spiritual commons

Perspectiva aims to inspire political, academic and business leaders, but Vernon, a great intellectual himself, already states at the beginning of his book that spiritual intelligence is not an elitist faculty. Spiritual intelligence also predates (organised) religion. We can turn to all wisdom traditions to find it, because all these traditions serve and seek to develop a sense of the nature of being. They are part of what Vernon calls the “spiritual commons”, an abundant cultural treasure from which we are all free to draw inspiration to live our lives.

The idea of the “spiritual commons” resonates very well with the practice of the Gamma Tao to provide a common ground for the exploration of all wisdom traditions.    

Seven steps

Mark Vernon has organized his book in seven steps that turn our mind to spiritual intelligence. These steps are accompanied by a few spiritual exercises. Even though I consider Mark Vernon a kindred spirit, at times I had difficulties to follow his footsteps and to see where he was going. I will not discuss all the steps presented here, and, as Mark Vernon himself suggests, they also needn’t be read in order.

New perspective on human history 

Mark Vernon’s first step is a reevaluation of the history of our human species. Vernon proposes to shift the attention from the Homo Faber, the human maker, and the utilitarian drive for survival, to the Homo Spiritualis and the quest for meaning and flourishing. 

He gives special attention to the inward turn to self-awareness that took place during the Axial Age, about 2,500 years ago, both in Eastern and Western civilizations. The emerging individuality created a non-intermediated space for spiritual development in human minds, as can be exemplified by the famous Delphic maxim: Know Thyself.

Foundation of ethics

In the Gamma Tao the Golden Rule is the main foundation for ethics. The Golden Rule teaches us not to do to others what we do not want others to do to us. This is a rule that is clearly rooted in emotional intelligence. 

Mark Vernon tries to steer away from ethical rules that seem to provoke so much polarization nowadays and considers spiritual intelligence a source for another type of ethics: virtue ethics. 

Virtue ethics had been the main way of thinking about how to live well since at least the Axial Age until Immanual Kant “argued for a morality based on musts and oughts at the end of the eighteenth century, and Jeremy Bentham invented utilitarianism in the nineteenth”. 

In making his case Vernon may sometimes attribute too much credit to spiritual intelligence. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristoteles used observations and rational intelligence to determine what constitutes a virtuous life. The Golden Rule is probably one of the best examples of an ethical concept based on individuality that appeared across cultures during the Axial Age. Still, it also seems plausible that human beings possess a direct (or spiritual) intuition for what is virtuous and what is not.   

Kairos attention

In the last chapter Vernon calls for a transformation of attention, away from the trance of everyday life into a parallel world not dictated by chronos, the clock of secular time, but by kairos, the ever-present cosmic moment. Kairos attention spots the timeliness of a particular insight or instant. 

This may very well be the most practical and profound piece of advice in the book. In an age of information overload and algorithms that are constantly trying to hijack our attention, we need to get back in control. 

Kairos attention can guide our awareness to the present moment and its possible significance or meaning. A mindset based on kairos attention interprets what is happening differently. “One person’s chance incident is another’s telling synchronicity”.

The role of spiritual intelligence

Mark Vernon’s book makes it is easy to see how spiritual intelligence can change our way of being in the world and how it can bring meaning to our existence. In this book he has done a great job exploring its potential and special relevance for our times.

In the Gamma Tao spiritual intelligence is an integrated part of human intelligence, indispensable for developing a wisdom mindset. It is also mysterious and hard to grasp. Taken apart or above other human capacities to know and to be in the world, it can also direct us towards a spirituality without wisdom. 

An intelligence should give us the capacity to distinguish between what is important or meaningful and what is not. This is something that easily gets overlooked, when it comes to spiritual intelligence.

If we start to define ourselves as Homo Spiritualis, we risk to become less sapiens in the process. If we do not want to become slaves of artificial intelligence, we will need all our capacities to feel, think and imagine working together. That said, spiritual intelligence may very well be the type of intelligence or X-factor that distinguishes us the most from AI. 

To conclude and to get a fair hearing on this, we can now turn to AI itself and ask ChatGPT:

Does artificial intelligence include spiritual intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) as a field of research and technology primarily focuses on the development of algorithms and systems that can perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence, such as understanding natural language, recognizing patterns, and making decisions.

As for spiritual intelligence, it is a subjective term. While it is being studied by some researchers, there is no established scientific model for it. It does not pertain to the traditional AI research and thus, is not a feature that is typically considered or developed in AI systems.

However, some researchers are looking into the possibility of creating AI systems that are capable of experiencing a sense of connectedness or understanding of something greater than themselves, although this is still very much a topic of debate and is not widely accepted by the scientific community.

It’s worth noting that the field of AI research is always evolving and there might be future developments that would include different areas of study and even spiritual intelligence, but currently it’s not something that is included in the mainstream of AI research.

We can conclude that Mark Vernon may be on to something.

Minding common ground

Books, Common Ground, , ,

Diversity is beautiful!

Nature shows us that every creature is unique. All creatures flourish in their own unique ways. When we see a field of wild flowers, we are impressed by a broad gamut of colours and beauty. Diversity is necessary to maintain complex ecosystems. What we often do not notice, however, is the common ground that underlies and nourishes this diversity.

The word “common”

I love the English word “common”. Other languages do not have such a versatile term for things we have in common. Historically the commons are the natural and cultural resources that are freely accessible to all members of a society. Common is also used in Commonwealth and all people with a healthy mind are able to use their common sense.

In fact, I see the Gamma Tao as just a common sense philosophy of life. It offers a common ground of basic human values that everyone can observe and practice, without the need of a teacher or guru.

Two new books on the common good

Recently I read two interesting new books that in different ways addressed the importance of the common good: Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times by Jonathan Sachs and The Tyranny of Merit. What’s Become of the Common Good by Michael J. Sandel.

Morality by Jonathan Sacks

Jonathan Sacks is a British orthodox rabbi, a public intellectual and author of many books. Sacks states that we live in an age of cultural climate change. In order to restore the common good, we cannot leave this to politics or the economy. We need “morality, a concern for the welfare of others, an active commitment to justice and compassion, a willingness to ask not just what is good for me but what is good for all-of-us-together. It is about ‘Us’ not ‘Me’, about ‘We’, not ‘I’”.

Chapter after chapter Sachs describes the perils of our times, such as unsocial media, identity politics, post-truth, public shaming and the lack of civility. His picture may seem a bit conservative and biased against the prevailing culture of individualism, but this is not a book of contemporary history.

As you may expect from a religious thought leader, this book is more like an extended sermon, a modern sermon, not backed up by traditional biblical quotes, but by recent insights and cases from many non-fiction books and scientific studies.

Wise elder

Reading Morality is like listening to a wise elder. We may not agree with everything the rabbi says. He may even come from another tradition than our own, but that should not make us blind for his perspective, stop listening or pick out and magnify the points we disagree with, as happens so often nowadays. On the contrary. That would go against everything Sacks stands for and writes about in this book.

Rabbi Sachs is a courageous and at the same time courteous debater himself, as he we can see here in his debate with the famous atheist scientist Richard Dawkins.

If you are planning to watch this video, please note that at 39:45 minutes into the debate there is a special moment, when the host asks the two debaters for points of agreement. She asks whether the rabbi and the atheist do have some common ground.

I think it would be great if questions like this one were asked more often during a debate, because it may cause debaters to take a new constructive perspective.

The kind of common ground Sachs tries to promote in Morality is not political, but a convenant between active citizens sharing collective responsibility.

“Convenant is what we have in common despite our differences”.

The Tyranny of Merit

Michael J. Sandel is one of the most popular philosophers of our times. His lectures in the form of Socratic dialogues attract millions of viewers all around the world.

In his latest book The Tyranny of Merit. What’s Become of the Common Good he shows how successful people who flourish in modern meritocratic societies come to believe that their success is all their own doing. They fail to understand how much of their success depended on favourable circumstances, unfair opportunities and often pure luck.

This “meritocratic hubris”, as he calls this attitude, produces deeply divided societies of “winners” and “losers” in which the losers seem to have no one to blame but themselves.

Sandel summarises the central argument of his book in this recent TED talk.

Sandel recommends to renew the dignity of work by acknowledging the important contributions workers without a college degree are making to the common good of modern societies.

The present pandemic is also giving us a new perspective on what kind of work is really essential in our societies.

Nurturing common ground

The books of Jonathan Sacks and Michael J. Sandel contain important advice on how to start mending the strong divisions in modern societies and how to focus on the common good.

If we want a human society to flourish in all its diversity, we should never forget to nurture our common ground.

Books! The Lost Art of Scripture by Karen Armstrong

Books, Scripture

We live in an age of science and technology. Science determines our view of the universe and technology the way we live. Nowadays revelations of the universe happen through measurements of the Higgs boson or “God Particle”, gravitational waves or a even a vague picture of a black hole. Ordinary people do not understand mysteries like these and need scientists as contemporary priests to explain their meaning and importance. In our daily lives we are overwhelmed by technology. We have the whole world in our handhelds. These miraculous devices are often revealed in annual rituals that are supposed to leave the spectators in awe.

Rescuing the Sacred Texts

Who needs scripture? Sacred texts seem to be completely irrelevant in our modern world. Only traditionalists still seem to hold on to these texts, but they often do so in such a literalistic and self righteous way that they completely miss the spirit and intentions in which they were written.

In her new book The Lost Art of Scripture Karen Armstrong is on a mission. She wants to save the sacred texts. Karen Armstrong is one of the world’s leading commentators of religious affairs. She has spent seven years of her life as a Roman Catholic nun, but left her order in 1969. She has written over a dozen of bestselling books on a broad range of religious topics and comparative religion in particular. She is a passionate campaigner for religious liberty and has received many honorary titles and awards, among which the TED Prize in February 2008 that marked the beginning of the Charter of Compassion, a charity that has grown into a worldwide organization.

The central theme of her new book is that in modern societies we have lost the skills to read sacred texts. Sacred texts are not ordinary texts. They are written to transform our mind and hearts. The underlying scope of most religious texts is to attune our mind to a higher order of things, a transcendent state of mind that goes beyond our immediate worldly concerns.

Armstrong shows in her book that nearly all the scriptures

“insist that men and women must … discover the divine within themselves and the world in which they live; they claim that every single person participates in the ultimate and has, therefore, unbounded potential”.

How to read scripture

Therefore scripture cannot be read superficially. They require special treatment. Sacred texts have to be interpreted and we need our imagination to understand their meaning. Myths are not fake news from a distant past. Most of the time they represent a timeless truth that in some sense happened once but which also happens all the time. Sacred texts require full engagement. In rituals we can even involve our own bodies to bring the meaning of scriptures to life. According to Karen Armstrong scriptural exegesis is an art, a holistic art that is never finished and will always be work in progress.

In her book she shows how interpreters of all living wisdom traditions have approached their scriptures, continuously adding multiple new perspectives from the times in which they lived.

Insights of neuroscience

Karen Armstrong regrets that in our own times we seem to use scripture mainly to confirm our own views. This may seem an opinion from a grumpy old lady, but she based her book not only on historical documents. She even used the latest insights of neuroscience to come to this conclusion.

Neuroscience is hot. Neuroscience determines more and more the way we think about ourselves. Dutch neuroscientist Dick Swaab famously wrote that We Are Our Brains, reducing the most famous of the Delphic maxims from Ancient Greece “Know Thyself” practically to “Know Your Brains”.

Karen Armstrong catches the neuroscientific spirit of our age when she writes that we are wired for transcendence. She mentions The Master and His Emissary. The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, a seminal book written by psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist that seems to have been a major inspiration for her.

Dominant left hemisphere

Brains have a right and a left hemisphere, each with a different perception of reality. The right hemisphere always tries to construct a holistic picture of reality. It is aware of its surroundings, understands the interconnectedness of all things, is less self-centred and is at the same time the seat of empathy. The left hemisphere on the other hand constructs a reductive version of reality. This part of our brain is analytical, selective and more pragmatic. It favours concrete, material things and tends to suppress information that it cannot grasp conceptually.

According to both Armstrong and McGilchrist the left hemisphere of our brains has become the most dominant part in modern Western culture. Both agree that this has been an unhealthy development. In the metaphor used by McGilchrist the Emissary has taken precedence over its Master. Karen Armstrong shows how the left hemisphere makes us approach scripture in a literalistic way, sometimes with a ridiculous focus on details. The Art of Scripture has been lost in the process.

Parallel missions

The Lost Art of Scripture is an important and timely book. It has a clear vision and scope. The historical picture of scriptural exegesis through the ages presented in this book will be open to debate. Neuroscience will also progress in the coming years and undoubtedly provide us with new revolutionary insights about our brains. In my evaluation of The Lost Art of Scripture however I will not activate the left hemisphere of my brains too much to dissect this book in minute detail, because my dominant right hemisphere is in total agreement with its central message.

In many ways the mission of Karen Armstrong in this book coincides with the mission of the Gamma Tao and this website. You may say that the Gamma Tao is about “The Lost Art of Wisdom”.

The Gamma Tao is not based on scripture, but on a symbol (or visualisation model) that intends to integrate the areas and functions of our brains with three perennial human principles and key values in order to build a wisdom mindset. Just like scripture, the Gamma Tao is work in progress, open to both the latest scientific findings and the insights of all wisdom traditions.

Karen Armstrong has sometimes been criticized for the anti-Western tendencies in her work and her rosy picture of non-Western traditions. There may be such a bias in this book as well, but it does not affect the validity of the central theme of this book at all.

We must certainly not be blind for all the crimes and violence that human traditions, both religious and secular, have caused in the world. Karen Armstrong herself has written a whole book about religion and the history of violence.

All traditions have black pages. But even then, we still may be able to learn something from their golden pages: their scriptures.

In order to do so we must approach these scriptures in more skillful ways. You can put on Gamma glasses, like I always try to do, or take the advice of Karen Armstrong and learn the Art of Scripture.

If we succeed in mastering the Art of Scripture again, we may first transform ourselves and ultimately even find new creative solutions to the problems of our times.

Gamma Glasses

Books! Rupert Sheldrake’s Ways to Go Beyond

Books, Practice

A few weeks ago Rupert Sheldrake’s new book Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work saw the light. As soon as I saw the beautiful sunflower on the cover, I knew I had to order a hardcover edition of this sequel to Science and Spiritual Practices.

Is it pure coincidence that a book written in the same spirit as the Gamma Tao has a sunflower on its cover? Or is this symbolic telepathy? In the universe of Rupert Sheldrake this may even be a possibility.

Whatever it is, I do feel a special connection with Rupert Sheldrake. I have heard him speak on several occasions now. Last year I even briefly hold hands with him during a short group ritual before having cakes, tea and conversation together at the HowTheLightGetsIn Festival in Haye-on-Wye.

Such a spontaneous tea ritual is typical for the way Sheldrake approaches spiritual practices in his latest two books. According to Sheldrake spiritual practices have many positive effects that can be experienced by participants and validated by scientific research.

In Science and Spiritual Practices Sheldrake wrote:

“the old-fashioned opposition between science and religion is a false dichotomy. Open-minded scientific studies enhance our understanding of spiritual and religious practices.”

Our little tea ritual at the festival certainly brought about feelings of gratitude and instantly increased the bond between the participants.

A controversial scientist

In scientific circles Rupert Sheldrake is a controversial man. His theory of morphic resonance has often been dismissed as pseudoscience. His experiments on dogs that know when their owners are coming home, the sense of being stared at and telephone telepathy are seldom taken serious by other scientists. A few years back TED in a rare act of censorship banned his talk from its website.

In this talk and his book The Science Delusion Sheldrake argued that many things that are taken for granted in science can still be questioned. He challenged the scientific world to break out of its mechanical and materialistic paradigm. Science has brought us great technological progress, but in his eyes it has become a dogmatic “belief system” based on philosophical materialism.

There may be a great amount of speculation in the idea of morphogenetic fields or the possibility that the sun has a degree of consciousness, but when he poses “heretical” hypotheses like these, Sheldrake does so with carefully phrased arguments and always remains within the boundaries of free scientific enquiry.

It is impossible to say whether Sheldrake’s hypotheses are true or false, but his arguments often make sense. Consciousness remains a “hard problem” for modern science and the idea of panpsychism seems to gain some new grounds. I find debates on the relation between science and religion or the nature of consciousness always fascinating and listen to talks of opponents like Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett as well. I never feel angry or upset when my own world view is challenged. More than that, debates like these can lead me to an open-minded state of aporia.

Wisdom of spiritual practices

The Gamma Tao is agnostic about these things. As I wrote several times before, the Gamma Tao is not about the ultimate truth of reality, salvation or enlightenment. It is a basis for practical wisdom that works.

And that is exactly the reason why Ways to Go Beyond and Science and Spiritual Practices align so well with the spirit of the Gamma Tao. These two books show again and again how spiritual practices from all kinds of religious traditions can help us to increase our wisdom as human beings.

Sheldrake does not only show how they work, but as the subtitle of Ways to Go Beyond already suggests, he also sets out to explain Why They Work.

In Science and Spiritual Practices Sheldrake wrote chapters about: meditation; the flow of gratitude, reconnecting with the more-than-human world; relating to plants; rituals and their relation to the past; singing, chanting, and the power of music; and pilgrimage and holy places.

In Ways to go beyond he continues with: the spiritual side of sports; learning from animals; fasting; psychedelics; powers of prayer; holy days and festivals; and cultivating good habits and being kind.

All chapters end with a few suggestions on how to integrate these practices into our own lives.

Both books show that Rupert Sheldrake has a broad knowledge of both religious traditions and recent scientific developments. At the same time these two books are very personal. Sheldrake draws a lot on his own personal experiences. Some passages read like an autobiography.

The key word is connection. As Sheldrake writes in the last chapter of Science and Spiritual Practices:

“Connection is the theme that unifies them [the spiritual practices] all. They lead us beyond the mundane to deeper kinds of connection.”

The word religion itself also carries this idea of reconnecting (“re-ligare”). In this sense, you may say that all spiritual practices are essentially religious.

The chapters in Science and Spiritual Practices and Ways to Go Beyond show how each practice helps to establish new kinds of connection. This power to connect is the main reason why spiritual practices work and why they can help us to flourish like a sunflower.

Books! The Courage To Be Disliked

Books, ,

Philosophical ideas are able to transcend time and place. In our contemporary connected world ideas travel faster than ever. Since the publication of Michael Puett’s The Path millions of western readers have shown interest in what Chinese philosophers have to say about the good life. Something similar, but in the opposite direction, happened to the book The Courage To Be Disliked, written by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga.

Since its publication in 2013 this book has sold millions of copies in Japan, China and South Korea. So does this book introduce ancient Greek philosophy to an Eastern audience? Not exactly. The Courage To Be Disliked is about the philosophy of life developed by Alfred Adler.

Who is Alfred Adler? If you never heard of him, there is no reason to feel ashamed. Alfred Adler is the “unknown third giant” of Austrian psychology, a younger contemporary of Freud and Jung. He was one of the original core members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, but he departed from it to establish his own school of thought that became known as Adlerian psychology. In several ways the psychology of Adler became the very opposite of psychoanalysis.

Ichiro Kishimi

One of the writers of The Courage To Be Disliked, Ichiro Kishimi, is one of the leading authorities on Alfred Adler. He is a certified counselor and consultant for the Japanese Society of Adlerian Psychology. He translated several of his books into Japanese and wrote an introduction to Adlerian psychology.

Ichiro Kishimi has been studying Ancient Greek philosophy from an early age. While scholars in the West would probably pose solid boundaries between philosophy and psychology or between classical and modern Western thought, from his Eastern perspective Ichiro Kishimi has no hesitations to place Alfred Adler in the tradition of classical Greek philosophy.

The Courage To Be Disliked presents Adlerian Psychology in the form of a Platonic dialogue between a philosopher and a young student. This form is also a kind of role play between the two writers Kishimi and Koga.

The dialogue form works very well to explain Adlerian psychology step by step and deal with possible criticisms. As a reader you find yourself constantly switching sides between the teachings of the philosopher and the objections of the student.

In the end it is up to the reader to accept or reject Adlerian psychology, but the book will certainly confront all readers with several challenging ideas about life and the possibilities to take control over one’s own happiness.

The Courage To Be Disliked may be a life changing book, even though it may take many years to fully grasp and internalize its teachings.

Adlerian psychology

It is difficult to summarize and do justice to Adlerian psychology in the way it is presented in The Courage To Be Disliked. Without the Platonic dialogue many arguments for and against Adlerian psychology will be lost here.

Adlerian psychology teaches us that we are not so much determined by our past as by the goals we set in our lives. At the same time it does not consider life as a linear process towards these goals. According to Adlerian psychology life is more like collection of dots or moments. We have to live in the present moment and enjoy all our little steps towards our goals like a dance.

In order to develop real happiness according to Adlerian psychology we should not set self-centered goals. Happiness comes from a feeling of belonging. We should develop a sense of community and always aim to contribute to the common good. Adler had a very broad and cosmopolitic concept of community. It included practically everything in the universe.

His concept of contribution was also very broad and not limited to beneficial acts. On the level of being practically everyone, even the incapacitated, can contribute to the community as a whole.

In Adlerian psychology all our problems are considered interpersonal relationship problems. Everything we do or think takes place within a social context. As long as we continue to see society as a place of competition and hierarchy, we will never be free and find happiness. We should therefore put our confidence in others – even at the risk that people take advantage of us – and strive to build horizontal relationships.

We should also be very clear about what our own tasks in life are and not interfere in the tasks of other people. We should certainly not worry about what other people may think of us. These judgements are none of our business. We should simply concentrate on our own business, find the courage to develop our talents, make a contribution to the community and ignore the things we cannot change.

If you want to place Adler in a classical tradition, you may find some resemblance with Stoic thought here.

Adlerian revival?

It is easy to see why Adlerian psychology with its emphasis on personal freedom combined with a strong sense of community and harmony attracts so many readers in the East. Adlerian psychology offers a way out of hierarchy, high expectations, conformity and the fear of losing face in the eyes of others.

The Courage to be Disliked has now been translated into various Western languages. It is too early to tell whether this book will lead to a broad reappraisal of Adlerian psychology in the West.

Ideas may flow quickly between East and West, but there may be unexpected cultural barriers that prevent the reimportion of ideas. I really doubt whether many Chinese people are willing to listen to Michael Puett’s teachings about their very own Confucius.

In Western countries many people seem to be very open right now to read about Japanese cultural phenomena like Ikigai, Shinrin-yoku, Wabi Sabi and Kintsugi/Kintsukuroi. Also Japanese books on cleaning (Maria Kondo), minimalism (Fumio Sasaki) and longevity (Junko Takahashi) are very popular today.

The Japanese do have a tradition to import ideas, improve on them and successfully export better versions. We have to wait and see what will happen to Adlerian psychology after this Japanese treatment.

More Than Happiness

Books

A few weeks ago I saw “More than happiness” by Antonia Macaro in a book shop. It was on a table full of new philosophy books. Even though it was still 2017 its copyright already indicated 2018. The copies must have just arrived! I had promised myself not to buy books that day, but I could not resist the temptation to read a book about “Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age”.

Now I am really glad I bought “More Than Happiness”. If the Gamma Tao was a publishing house, it would publish books like this. Antonia Macaro is an existential psychotherapist with a long-standing interest in both Buddhism and Stoicism. In this book she explains both wisdom traditions, compares them and finally extracts some learnings that are relevant for modern readers. She also carefully separates practical wisdom from transcendental speculations. After all, we live in a sceptical age.

In the title “More Than Happiness” Antonia Macaro already distances itself from self help books that promise happiness. This should not surprise us. Buddhism and Stoicism are not exactly known for their optimistic view on life.

For Buddhism suffering or Dukkha is the basic condition of human life. Its cause is ignorance or craving. The Buddhist path is the medicine that leads to the cessation of suffering or enlightenment. Stoics see emotions as the main cause for suffering. Harmful emotions arise from faulty value judgements that need to be corrected in order to get Stoic peace of mind.

Ethics and insight are at the heart of both traditions and their overall message is clearly one of renunciation. “We’d all benefit from taking a more detached view of our objects of desire”, writes Macaro. She observes that both traditions set a “very high ethical bar” and “hold a lofty ideal of an individual who has developed perfect spontaneous morality”: the sage and the Buddha.

It is interesting to read how Antonia Macaro discusses the role of compassion and equanimity in Buddhism and Stoicism:

The most distinctive intersection of Buddhist and Stoic ethics is the ideal of sympathetic detachment – a kind of engagement with others that comes from a place of nonattachment. This requires attaining an optimal blend of compassion and equanimity, combining appropriate engagement with the ability to avoid being tossed around by emotions.

The last two chapters of the book are dedicated to Buddhist and Stoic practice and she concludes with ten meditations that are inspired by Buddhist and Stoic insights and aim to put some of them into action.

These meditations are:

  1. Get into the self-monitoring habit
  2. Question your thinking
  3. Remind yourself that “it’s a cup” (about attachment)
  4. Don’t get hung up on status and reputation
  5. Radiate goodwill
  6. Don’t be too optimistic
  7. Think about death (but not too much)
  8. Consider the bigger picture
  9. Use common sense
  10. Be quiet

Meditations like these are a good example of how classic wisdom traditions can be a source of inspiration for modern life. At the same time she remains critical of certain aspects of Stoicism and Buddhism and does not place them on a pedestal. That exactly is also the scope of the Gamma Tao. I therefore highly recommend this book, especially for readers who are new to Buddhism and Stoicism.

Let’s conclude with the final words of the “More Than Happiness”:

We should cultivate clarity and curiosity, contentment and compassion. ‘Life is short. That’s all there is to say. Get what you can from the present – thoughtfully, justly’, says Marcus (Aurelius). We should not aim to make ourselves fortress-like, but to be vulnerable more wisely.

a beautiful question

Books, Science, , ,

beautiful question

This new book of Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek is high on my reading list.

If I am not mistaken Wilczek explores in this book how scientists through history have been inspired by the idea of beauty and how beauty itself can also be considered an organizing principle in the universe.

I am particularly interested to know if and how Wilczek makes a distinction in the book between Nature’s Deep Design and the among scientists controversial idea of intelligent design.

According to a review in the Financial Times A Beautiful Question is not an easy book to read, especially the chapters where Wilczek explores the interesting topic of “Quantum Beauty”.

Quantum theory may be too complex for general readers like myself, but the awe inspiring beauty of Nature is of course very obvious and can easily be experienced by everybody, not just by scientists.