The Depth of Doubt

I remember my bhante (buddhist teacher) telling me once that doubt is a useful tool, but also the last hurdle to leap on the path to enlightenment - it is there till the end. 

Using doubt as a tool to question your thoughts, feelings and beliefs is something I have learnt to do with practise; however some times the doubt travels so deeply - to my core, and it's hard to think about anything else.

Am I in the right job? Should I become ordained? Should I sell everything? Should I stay or should I go? What will happen to my loving partner and our dogs?

I try to use these experiences to open my awareness to the various opportunities available to me, however searching for the other, the better somewhere else, is just a form of chasing, of grasping at the future.

It is a bit like being an alcoholic; taking one day at a time - I don't need to figure out all the answers now, I just need to do the best I can in this moment, and the next moment, and the next moment.

Unfortunately at times like this my ability to remain in the moment is reduced, and my awareness of how short and fleeting our lives are increases, so I have an overwhelming urge to change SOMETHING. Something that will take me one step closer to the end of samsara; this never-ending wheel of birth, life and death.

It must be time to contemplate The Noble Eightfold Path. Perhaps my monthly challenges could instead be focused on the precepts instead of habits?! Although it might be more appropriate to contemplate the path during my morning meditations...

How deep is your doubt? 

Is your Journey Right for You?

I felt hit by a thunderbolt while listening to the No Meat Athlete podcast with Nicole Antoinette yesterday; what she said wasn't new, however the WAY she said it drove home a point I needed to hear.

So, what was it all about? To paraphrase, her point is to enjoy the journey, not just the destination, however what opened my eyes was the way she described your happiness on the journey being KEY to whether the destination is even right for you.

Working towards any goal requires effort, and you may attribute a feeling to an achievement, such as, when I get a new job I'll be happy. Or, when I meet my soul mate I'll be happy. But what Nicole points out is, unless the journey to your goal makes you happy, then the destination definitely won't! At best you'll feel happy for a while before discontent creeps in again and at worst you'll have wasted all that effort for a goal that was never really 'you'.

Personally, it makes me question whether MY big goal is right for me. Mike and I have bought the property in Woodanilling, with the plan of building a permaculture site and tourist accommodation. We had originally based this on a 10 year plan but initial contact with the Council and other government departments helped us realise there was a LOT more bureaucracy involved and it would more likely be a 15-20 year plan in practise.

This is because we had planned to owner-build all the accommodations however it is not legal to owner-build tourist accommodation in Western Australia (only your own accommodation). To start out cheaply we had also looked into buying a shipping container and making this into our first accommodation, then renting this out in the future and building our own home, however the Council does not even want shipping containers placed on properties in the area, let alone have them fitted out and rented as accommodation.

Basically we have realised our plans entail about 15-20 years of fighting with the Council and getting the local population on side. Yes, the result may be amazing however that process does NOT make me happy.

I am currently completing Nicole's Worksheets in her free ebook "Stop Making Excuses and Start Running" which is applicable to any procrastinator out there (not just runners); I expect answering her cut-to-the-point questions will help me figure out what journey is for me.

Is your journey right for you? 

Cruelty Free Shopping

I’m going grey. I have been for a few years now so it’s no great shock, but I do dye my hair as I’m not quite ready to be as grey as my hair is. I went to the store to find some hair dye but all the brands available do testing on animals. I even tried the chemist which had a larger selection of brands, but the result was the same.

Why is it so hard to purchase from a company that doesn’t torture animals? The labels of ALL hair dyes say you need to do a test on yourself before use to make sure your not allergic, so why burn the eyes of bunnies before selling the product? It seems like such an archaic process to test cosmetics and other products on animals; there is no correlation between reactions in animals and reactions in humans anyway?! Scientifically it doesn’t even make sense.

Personally I won’t give money to a company who does animal testing because:

a) keeping animals in laboratories is cruel

b) testing products on animals hurts, harms and kills millions of animals year-round

c) if you hurt your pet it’s assault, if you hurt thousands it’s science

Something is seriously wrong with this picture! How can we hate the idea of someone kicking their dog but be OK with thousands of dogs being tortured to make sure our hair dye is OK?

If you want to find out which brands test on animals then there is a list of websites given below, but you can do a web search for “cruelty free” and the item you want to buy and this will usually bring you the information immediately.

Please comment below and add brands you love, or hate depending on their animal testing credentials.

Australia: http://www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au/ or shop here http://www.crueltyfreeshop.com.au/

Brands that DO test on animals given here: http://www.animalsaustralia.org/features/animal-testing-list.php 

USA: http://www.peta.org/living/beauty-and-personal-care/companies/default.aspx

Does Free Will Exist?

Last night I watched the last of “The Story of Science” documentaries, this one was titled Who Are We? and discussed (in part) B.F.Skinner’s work on behavioural psychology in the 1950s. Skinner did research with pigeons that showed he could alter their behaviour very quickly using rewards. He then theorised that humans learn in the same way, and that ALL of our behaviour is learnt in response to our environment.

Personally this sounds like nurture over nature; a theory I have personal reasons for not agreeing with completely. I’m adopted and have very noticeable similarities to my biological family. We don’t just look alike but we have the same mannerisms and ideologies despite the fact I only met them when I was 21 years of age.

But even if Skinner’s theory doesn’t explain 100% of our behaviour, it certainly has been proven to work on humans; the Broken Window Theory implemented by Mayor Guiliani during the 1990s is evidence of this (as discussed in The Tipping Point).

However Skinner’s theory is only one argument against free will, determinism is another. Determinism states that by the physical laws of cause and effect all actions can be determined given a specific causal scenario; essentially you can predict a result with certainty if you understand what causes that result.

Take that theory to its ultimate end and you can imagine that every action in the universe was put into play at the big bang; the physical laws just took over and played out the determined result based on the causes that were present (after the big bang). Then our very existence as well as every action we take is just the playing out of subatomic particles1.

Whether you choose to believe in either determinism or Skinner’s theory may be irrelevant. Some people believe humans invented God in order to make sense of the world, but maybe we also invented the concept of free will to feel empowered and important, like our choices matter.

Perhaps our future generations will let go of the ego involved in free will – my choice, my decision, my responsibility. Maybe being a part of the giant cosmic explosion2 is enough?

I know that free will ‘seems right’; it’s hard to believe that we’re not in control of our own movements and decisions, but not so long ago everyone believed that the world was flat and the universe revolved around the earth – those ideas seemed right at the time too.

I’d ask what you think but your answer is already determined 

1 "the playing out playing out of subatomic particles" - quote and concept from The Waking Life

2 "we're living through a giant cosmic explosion" - quote from The Story of Science