Understanding that your life is not about you is the connection point with everything else. It lowers the mountains and fills in the valleys that we have created, as we gradually recognize that the myriad forms of life in the universe, including ourselves, are operative parts of the One Life that most of us call God. After such a discovery, I am grateful to be a part—and only a part! I do not have to figure it all out, straighten it all out, or even do it perfectly by myself. I do not have to be God.
Sam Harris’s Vanishing Self
Are you thinking about Margaret Thatcher right now? Well, now you are. Were you thinking about her exactly six minutes ago? Probably not. There are answers to questions of this kind, whether or not anyone is in a position to verify them.
.. The basic claim, common to both traditions, is that we spend our lives lost in thought. The feeling that we call “I”— the sense of being a subject inside the body — is what it feels like to be thinking without knowing that you are thinking. The moment that you truly break the spell of thought, you can notice what consciousness is like between thoughts — that is, prior to the arising of the next one. And consciousness does not feel like a self. It does not feel like “I.” In fact, the feeling of being a self is just another appearance in consciousness (how else could you feel it?).
.. Granted, Buddhism and Hinduism have very crowded pantheons, and a fair number of spooky and unsupportable doctrines, but the core insight into the illusoriness of the self can be found there in a way that it can’t in the Abrahamic tradition. And cutting through this illusion does not require faith in anything.
.. If you turn consciousness upon itself in this moment, you will discover that your mind tends to wander into thought. If you look closely at thoughts themselves, you will notice that they continually arise and pass away. If you look for the thinker of these thoughts, you will not find one. And the sense that you have — “What the hell is Harris talking about? I’m the thinker!”— is just another thought, arising in consciousness.
How the drag queen Cassandro became a star of Mexican wrestling.
“They say religion is for those who are afraid to go to Hell,” Armendáriz told me. “But spirituality is for those who have already been to Hell. That’s me.”
.. The character who interested me the most was Platanito, the referee. He did a fine job of being diabolical. He would seem to be imposing order, keeping the rudos in line, but then, at a critical moment, he would fail and reveal his weakness, his corruption. A técnico would be getting unlawfully stomped by a three-man tag team, and Platanito would suddenly jump in and join them, unable to resist the fun. Lucha libre referees have complex, only semi-managerial roles. They are much like the Mexican government, only funnier. But it was hard to tell how many people at the Mayan were in on the joke.
The Problem With Christian Films
Certainly, there are ways to make honest, profound Christian films. What if Persecuted was about a Reverend, formerly powerful in the Republican party, coming to terms with his lessening influence? What if God Is Not Dead was about a Christian wrestling with the fact that he knew atheists smarter and more ethical than himself? Suddenly we would have a chance to say something vulnerable, honest, and profound. But as long as Christian films are motivated by a desire to trap people into hearing a gospel presentation, or as a consolation for losing the culture war, they should not make the final cut.