Essential Spirituality:
Central Principles and
Practices of Spiritual Life
Although there is a great number of [spiritual] practices all of them have a common purpose because all of them are methods for subduing our uncontrolled mind. Our present mind is like a wild elephant—out of control and hard to tame.
—Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Tibetan Buddhist teacher 138
Not only do we have an unprecedented richness of information but also of spiritual disciplines. We are the first generation to have all the world’s spiritual and religious traditions available to us and to be able to practice them without being burned at the stake. This remarkable situation makes it possible to identify crucial principles and practices common to different traditions.
CENTRAL PRINCIPLES
The Interdependence of Virtues
The idea that spiritual qualities depend on and support one another echoes through the wisdom literatures of both East and West. The key claim is, as Michael Murphy, a philosopher and founder of the famed Esalen Institute, summarized it, “Every virtue requires other virtues to complete it.”250
A similar theme echoes through the East. One of the most famous of all Eastern Orthodox Christian texts, The Philokalia, asks, “Which virtue is the most important?” and replies “The answer to this is that the virtues are linked one to another, and follow as it were a sacred sequence, one depending on the other...”272 In China, Confucius warned, “Possessed of courage but devoid of morality, a gentleman will make trouble while a small man will be a brigand.”207 Likewise Buddhist psychology describes in precise terms how certain positive mental qualities tend to strengthen one another, and how others—such as effort and calm—need to be in balance.268
There actually seem to be two distinct concepts contained in the idea of the interdependence of virtues. The first is that virtues complement one another. The second is that the cultivation of one virtue facilitates the cultivation of others.
Authentic Traditions Offer Multifaceted Disciplines
Given the interdependence of virtues, it is not surprising that authentic spiritual disciplines provide multiple techniques and practices. As such, they offer rounded psychological and spiritual training: for example, the yogas of Taoism and Hinduism, the eight-fold path of Buddhism, and certain Western contemplative traditions. Michael Murphy’s book The Future of the Body250 offers an excellent discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of various traditions.
The necessity of multifaceted disciplines is supported by recent psychological research on development. It is now apparent that development proceeds not in some monolithic manner in which all psychological capacities and qualities grow together, but rather in a loosely correlated way. Ken Wilber points out that the maturation of one “developmental line” or capacity, such as intellectual ability, can readily outstrip others, such as moral or emotional development. The result is uneven or lopsided development that is fraught with potential problems for the individual and sometimes for his or her society. For example, intellectual development seems to be necessary, but by no means sufficient, for moral development. Therefore, highly intelligent but morally immature people—such as Hitler and the Nazis—can act in extremely unethical ways and thereby inflict horrendous suffering on societies or even the planet.412 The fate of our species and our planet may depend on our ability to match our intellectual and technological mastery with our emotional and moral maturity. Wise people have long recognized this kind of need, and authentic spiritual disciplines therefore offer a full complement of practices that foster maturation of many facets of personality.
The Authenticity of Spiritual Disciplines
Early researchers comparing contemplative disciplines often assumed that all of them—whether yoga or shamanism, Taoism or Sufism—resulted in the same common final experience and developmental stage.b However, it is now increasingly clear that while some disciplines may converge, and perhaps even display a so-called “transcendent unity of religions,”328 different disciplines may also induce quite different experiences and also aim for different developmental levels. Recognizing this, Ken Wilber made a crucial distinction between two vital religious dimensions: legitimacy and authenticity.407
The legitimacy of a tradition refers to the degree to which it satisfies the psychological needs of a population at its current developmental level.
The authenticity of a discipline refers to the developmental level for which a tradition aims. That is, a tradition is said to be authentic to the extent to which it aims to foster development to higher, transpersonal stages.
To these we can add effective authenticity, which is a measure of the extent to which a discipline is effective in moving practitioners to the higher stages for which it aims.
However, we probably need a more nuanced view of both authenticity and effective authenticity. Given that there are many independent psychological capacities, we can not speak precisely of a person being at a single level of development. Certainly we can recognize a center of gravity or an average level of development in any individual. However, we also need to recognize that development can be uneven and that a person may be at quite distinct levels on different capacities.
Likewise, disciplines may have different effects on different capacities. That is, a particular discipline might foster some capacities more than others. For example, classical Confucianism was probably good at cultivating, and therefore highly authentic for, moral development, but was probably far less effective for concentration.
THE SEVEN CENTRAL PRACTICES
If one plumbs, investigates into, sharpens, and refines himself,
a morning will come when he will gain self-enlightenment.
—Lu Shiang-Shan, neo-Confucian sage 57
There seems to be widespread agreement among the sages of the world’s great religions that there are seven qualities of heart and mind and seven kinds of practices to develop them that are central to a full spiritual life.392 These practices are essential for anyone who would live wisely, love wholeheartedly, mature fully, and contribute effectively.
Above all, these seven practices are indispensable for anyone who seeks the higher reaches of spiritual life. These higher reaches are known by many names: enlightenment and liberation, salvation and satori, fana and nirvana, awakening and Ruah Ha-qodesh. Different names, but all point to the highest human possibility, which, paradoxically, is simply the recognition of who we really are.
But of course that “who” turns out to be far, far more than we usually think. In fact it, and we, turn out to be not only more than we think, but more than we can think. “This Mind is the Buddha” exclaimed the great Huang Po27 and numerous other Buddhist masters. “Here, in my own soul, the greatest of all miracles has taken place—God has returned to God,”157 rejoiced the remarkable Christian Meister Eckhart. This is possible because in the words of one of India’s greatest philosopher-sages, Sri Aurobindo: “The Self is that one, immutable, all-pervading, all-containing, self-existent reality or Brahman hidden behind our mental being into which our consciousness widens out when it is liberated from the ego…”15
We could multiply examples endlessly, but the general point is simple. There is widespread agreement that seven kinds of practices are central and essential for anyone who would live life to the fullest.d These seven practices are:
1) Living ethically, 2) Transforming emotions, 3) Redirecting motivation,
4) Training attention, 5) Refining awareness, 6) Cultivating wisdom,
and 7) Serving others.
Here, I will illustrate them with quotations from multiple religions and focus on shamanic sources in later chapters. For an expanded discussion of these practices, and exercises to make them part of your life, see my book Essential Spirituality: The Seven Central Practices.
LIVING ETHICALLY
Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain
And your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.
—Tai Shang Kon Ying P’ien (Taoism) 276
Spiritual traditions regard ethical living as an essential foundation. However, their understanding of ethics is very different from conventional views and far more psychologically astute. “Rare are those who understand virtue,” sighed Confucius.207
Spiritual traditions view ethics not in terms of conventional morality, but rather as an essential discipline for training the mind. Contemplative introspection makes it painfully apparent that unethical behavior—behavior that aims at inflicting harm—both stems from and strengthens unhealthy, destructive motives and emotions such as greed, anger, and jealousy. In Western psychological terms, unethical behavior reinforces these destructive mental elements; in Asian terms, it stamps their “karmic imprint” on the mind, karma here being the psychological residue left by past behavior.
Conversely, ethical behavior—behavior intended to enhance the well-being of all—heals the mind. It cultivates healthy qualities—such as kindness, calm, and compassion—while inhibiting unhealthy destructive motives and emotions through a process psychologists call “reciprocal inhibition.” Once this is recognized, ethics change dramatically. It becomes not something imposed from without but rather something sought from within, not a sacrifice but rather enlightened self-interest, a gift to both others and oneself. As the Buddha pointed out: “Whatever you do, you do to yourself.”42
At first ethical training involves a struggle to reverse old habits. However, with practice it becomes increasingly effortless and spontaneous until “whatever is…thought to be necessary for sentient beings happens all the time of its own accord.”111 Confucius described this stage as one in which “I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right.”384 The well-known Buddhist meditation teacher Jack Kornfield describes the maturation of ethical living as follows: “At first, precepts [ethics] are a practice. Then they become a necessity, and finally they become a joy.”199
TRANSFORMING EMOTIONS
Everything from ruler, minister, husband, wife and friends to mountains, rivers, spiritual beings, birds, animals, and plants should be truly loved in order to realize my humanity that forms one body with them, and then my clear character will be completely manifested, and I will really form one body with Heaven, Earth and the myriad things.
—Wang Yang Ming (neo-Confucian sage) 50
There are three key components to emotional transformation.
1) Reducing problematic emotions such as fear, anger, and jealousy
2) Cultivating positive emotions such as love, joy, and compassion
3) Developing equanimity
Spiritual disciplines contain a wealth of practices for both reducing difficult emotions and for cultivating beneficial ones to remarkable levels. For example, Christian agape, yogi bhakti (transpersonal love), Buddhist karuna (compassion), and Confucian jen (humanity) reach their full flowering only when they unconditionally and unwaveringly embrace all people and even all creatures.
This is facilitated by the third component of emotional transformation: the cultivation of equanimity. Equanimity is an imperturbability that maintains mental equilibrium and allows emotions such as love and compassion to remain unwavering, even under duress. This is, for example, the Stoic’s euthymia, the Jewish hishtavut, the Christian “divine apatheia,” and the “contented self” of Islamic Sufism. Western psychology recognizes a weaker form of this that it calls “affect tolerance.”425 Emotional transformation presumably fosters “emotional intelligence” that research suggests is associated with exceptional personal, interpersonal, and professional success.122 Here psychology would agree with the twelfth-century Jewish physician and teacher Maimonides that “emotions of the soul should be watched, regularly examined, and kept well balanced.”163
REDIRECTING MOTIVATION
All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are of longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well….Desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience. It is the choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing—food, sex, power, fame—will make you happy is to deceive oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.
—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (twentieth-century Hindu sage) 257
Traditionally, redirecting motivation has two major components. The first is to reduce the compulsive power of craving; the second is to change the objects of desire.
The spiritual view of the importance of reducing craving was succinctly summarized by Mohammad with his words “the miser is the poorest of all”9 and by the Buddha in his second and third Noble Truths. The second truth states that “the cause of suffering is craving,” and the third claims that freedom from craving brings freedom from suffering. The neo-Confucian philosopher-sage Wang Yang Ming went so far as to claim that
the learning of the great person consists entirely in getting rid of the obscuration of selfish desires…so as to restore the condition of forming one body with Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things.50
With spiritual practice, motivation becomes less scattered and more focused; the things desired become more subtle and more internal. There is less concern with material acquisition and more concern with metamotives, especially self-transcendence and selfless service. Traditionally this motivational shift was seen as “purification.” In Western psychological terms it seems analogous to movement up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs227 and in social terms to the historian Arnold Toynbee’s idea that “etherealization” occurs as cultures evolve.80 Contemporary research agrees that psychological maturity leads to greater concern for others.397
TRAINING ATTENTION
Control the mind.
Attain one-pointedness.
Then the harmony of heaven
Will come down and dwell in you.
You will be radiant with life.
You will rest in Tao.
—Chuang Tzu, Taoist philosopher 236
For contemplative traditions, cultivating attention and concentration is crucial. By contrast, attentional training is much misunderstood in the West. In fact, “No subject occupies a more central place in all traditional teachings; and no subject suffers more neglect, misunderstanding, and distortion in the thinking of the modern world.”326
For a century, Western psychology made the tragic error of accepting the dismal conclusion of William James that “attention cannot be continuously sustained.”178 Yet James went further to suggest that
the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again is the very root of judgment, character and will. No one is compos sui if he have it not. An education which would improve this faculty would be the education par excellence….It is easier to define this ideal than to give practical direction for bringing it about.176
Here is a stark contrast between Western psychology, which says attention cannot be sustained, and contemplative disciplines, which say that attention can and must be sustained if we are to mature to our true potentials.
Controlling attentional wanderlust is so important because the mind tends to take on qualities of the objects to which it attends, and according to yoga, “Whatever we contemplate or place our attention on, that we become.”94 For example, thinking of an angry person inflames anger while thinking of a loving person elicits love. Here’s a little experiment that will make this crystal clear:
Take a deep breath, relax, and notice how you feel. Now visualize or think about someone you know who seems like an angry person. When you have that person in mind, notice how you feel. Let that image go, take a breath, and relax. Then visualize or think of someone who is warm and loving. Now, how do you feel? Probably very different.
Those who can control attention can therefore cultivate specific emotions and motives. Eventually they can bring their minds to such calm and stillness that awareness becomes clear and reveals our true nature. The Bible urges, “Be still and know that I am God,”295 while the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu classic, describes the results of concentration and calm as follows:
When, through the practice of yoga,
the mind ceases its restless movements,
and becomes still, one realizes the Atman [Self],
it satisfies one entirely.
Then one knows that infinite happiness
which can be realized by the purified heart…290
Chuang Tzu gave an equally beautiful description:
When water is still it is like a mirror….
And if water thus derives lucidity from stillness,
How much more the faculties of mind?
The mind of the sage being in repose
Becomes the mirror of the universe.117
REFINING AWARENESS
Contemplatives of all stripes agree that our usual awareness is insensitive and impaired: fragmented by attentional instability, colored by clouding emotions, and distorted by scattered desires. Similar ideas echo through Western thought, which suggests that we mistake shadows for reality (Plato) because we see through “narrow chinks” (William Blake), a “reducing valve” (Aldous Huxley), or “through a glass darkly” (St. Paul).
The fifth practice therefore refines awareness by making perception more sensitive, more accurate, and more appreciative of the freshness and novelty of each moment. Then, according to Chuang Tzu, one “sees what the eyes sees, and does not add to it something that is not there.”238
The antidote to this blindness is practicing clear, continuous awareness. Clear awareness heals and transforms, and the Buddha declared that “mindfulness…is helpful everywhere.”267 Contemplatives would agree with Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy, that “awareness per se—by and of itself—can be curative.”277
WISDOM
Happy are those who find wisdom….
She is more precious than jewels,
And nothing you desire can compare with her….
And all her paths are peace….
Get wisdom, get insight: do not forget
—Jewish Torah
Wisdom is deep understanding of, and practical skill in responding to, the central existential issues of life. Existential issues are those crucial and universal concerns that all of us face simply because we are human. They include finding meaning and purpose in our lives, managing relationships and aloneness, acknowledging our limits and smallness in a universe vast beyond comprehension, living in inevitable uncertainty and mystery, and dealing with suffering and death. A person who has developed deep insights into these issues, and skills for dealing with them, is wise indeed.
Wisdom is much more than knowledge, and Taoism is very clear that “he who is learned is not wise.”280 Whereas knowledge simply requires information, wisdom requires understanding it; knowledge informs us whereas wisdom transforms us; knowledge is something we have, wisdom something we must become.
Spiritual disciplines regard the cultivation of wisdom as a central goal of life. They particularly recommend the following: To seek wisdom from the company of the wise, from the study of their writings, from reflecting on the nature of life and death, and by spending time in nature, silence, and solitude. Above all, they urge us to look within ourselves, since as Lao Tzu said, “Knowledge studies others, wisdom is self-known.”40
SERVING OTHERS: AN ALTRUISTIC LIFE
All that one gives one gives to oneself.
If this truth is understood,
Who will not give to others?
—Ramana Maharshi 297
Spiritual disciplines regard altruistic service as both a means to, and an expression of, maturity. “Make it your guiding principle to do your best for others,” urged Confucius, and “put service before the reward you get for it.”207 Likewise, the Buddha claimed that if we really understood the transformative power of generosity we would not want to eat a meal without sharing it.
Generous service can transform the mind. Giving inhibits qualities such as craving and jealousy, while strengthening positive emotions such as love and happiness.
In addition, what we ourselves experience reflects what we want others to experience. If we plot revenge and plan pain for others, we tend to inflame emotions such as anger and hatred in ourselves. Yet when we desire happiness for others we tend to feel it ourselves, an experience that Buddhists call “sympathetic joy.” This is why practices designed to cultivate benevolent feelings—such as love, compassion, and sympathetic joy—can produce remarkably ecstatic states.
Western psychologists are reaching similar conclusions. Generous people tend to be happier and psychologically healthier and to experience a “helper’s high.”251; 397 As people age, they increasingly find that it is their legacy—their contributions to the world and future generations—that gives meaning and satisfaction to their lives.213 The so-called “paradox of pleasure” is that taking time to make others happy makes us happier than devoting all our efforts to our own pleasure.251 Some therapists use this principle by, for example, advising clients to do something for another person each day. Abraham Maslow summarized the contemplative understanding as follows: “The best way to become a better helper is to become a better person. But one necessary aspect of becoming a better person is via helping other people.”226 Mohammad summarized this practice extremely simply with the words “be kind to all.”9
SUMMARY
These are the seven practices that sages the world over emphasize as central and essential for a full spiritual life. Together they constitute a “technology of transcendence” for awakening our potentials and living life to the fullest. Shamans were the first to develop this art, and in the following chapters we will explore the specific ways in which shamans use it.