What I'm Reading: Stepping Out of Self-Deception

Despite my addiction to fiction, I do read an occasional Buddhist book. Right now I'm skipping around (my preferred reading style) in Stepping Out of Self-Deception by Rodney Smith, a Seattle-based Insight meditation teacher.

Smith's book covers familiar territory - the foundations of Buddhism, along with encouragements. And yet, his writing glows with the deep aliveness to daily life that arises from many years of training and teaching. In a word, insight.

This sentence captures this aliveness quite succinctly:

The purpose of meditation is to inform us about the true nature of relationships, and it will take us directly into the reactive patterns that keep us separated from all life.

Much later in the book a loud echo of this theme appears:

The most important quality of maturity may be flexibility. A mature person is never one way only, and if a situation calls for toughness or its opposite, the character arises to meet its responsibility.

Smith emphasizes that the Buddha's teachings undercut the self-deceptions of certainty, rules and structures - or any effort to determine outcomes. They only require us to come alive to life, as it is, in this moment.

Strongly recommended.

Note: Buddha Space recently published an excellent, in-depth review of Stepping Out of Self-Deception.

Comments

[Genju]

I like Rodney Smith's talks. Very direct and accessible. His series on the percepts (I'm on a tear about precepts these days!) was illuminating. A powerful and rare teacher. Thank you for suggesting this book. I'll get it onto my list!

[BarkingUnicorn]

"the Buddha's teachings undercut the self-deceptions of certainty, rules and structures - or any effort to determine outcomes."

And yet, every financially successful guru sells the comforting delusion of certainty, law and order.

"Mediate this way, do these things, fulfill these vows, and Enlightenment will surely come eventually."

The half-true "Law" of Attraction: what you put out is what you'll get back. Didn't work that way for Jesus, Gandhi, MLK, etc.

The full, terrible truth of Karma is this: from every action arise *multiple* effects, each of which has *both* Yin and Yang in unpredictable and uncontrollable proportions. The effects of every cause are chaotic.

Chaos, not Law, rules. Scientists and religious people agree that the Universe arose from Chaos and will sink into Chaos. I don't understand why they insist it isn't in Chaos right now.

In 1919, an Irishman saved another man from being kicked to death by a mob; a noble, good deed - right?

The man whose life he saved was Adolph Hitler. World War II could have been avoided if the Irishman had just refrained from "any effort to determine outcomes."

http://is.gd/ePx2r

You can do no purely good or purely evil deed. EVERY action gives rise to multiple effects, each of which is helpful to some and unhelpful to others. Therefore striving to do only good is futile, a delusional goal.

Keep it simple; every honest, true thing is SIMPLE!

"There is one purpose to life and one only: to >> bear witness <<< to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world – its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. The more you understand, the more you look, the greater is your enjoyment of life and your sense of peace. That’s all there is to it. Everything else is just fun and games."

~ Ann Rice in "Servant of the Bones" (Emphasis added)

"...come alive to life, as it is, in this moment."

Keep it simple.