Spirituality
What Is “Spirituality?”
I said on the previous page that “spirituality” is a loaded term. There is, I believe, a way to approach a discussion of spirituality that alleviates some of that emotional charge.
Subjective Experience
Each of us has at all times a unique subjective experience. This is what makes our perception of the color red much more than just a simple response to a sensation. In fact, it is what generates the reactive response to a loaded term or sentence. We react to wide range of stimuli with varying degrees of emotional intensity. We have at every moment an experience that is unique, original, and vivid.
In addition to subjective experience we have concepts and attitudes. Concepts and attitudes attenuate and amplify each element of an experience in real time, resulting in a shifting and unfolding sequence of thoughts and perceptions that trigger various emotional responses, inspire mental images, and generate other experiential contents. This is so habitual that we hardly think about it. We usually are just carried along by the display.
Spirituality is the cultivation of concepts, attitudes, and actions of various types that make life worth living.
In actual practice, spiritual cultivation gathers an aggregate of factors, such as our relationships with others, and our contributions to some greater collective benefit, such as the successful functioning of our community or nation. Seen through this lens, the cultivation of conditions that make life worth living encompasses all of religion, culture, government, educational institutions, charities, entertainment, work, family, and so on.
One important factor in healthy spirituality seems to be the maintainence of balance between all of these different commitments. How we manage our hopes and fears, pleasures and responsibilities, is a central task of spirituality.
The Book of Paying Attention
In my view, the most important act of spiritual cultivation is paying attention, moment by moment, to the flow of our inner states. When approached with openness and sincerity, the practice of paying attention can reveal to us our own natural inner radiance and joy. We become more aware of the inner states others, and can see and appreciate their inner radiance and joy as well.
In The Book of Paying Attention I offer a number of ways – categorized by circumstance – that we can find and experience joy moment by moment. Recognizing that core of essential happiness presents us a foundation that can support us in the midst of changing life situations. Life becomes a voyage of discovery, encounters with others are imbued with love and acceptance, and our day-to-day life experience becomes vivid and rich with meaning.
For example, here is a brief excerpt on the topic of happiness:
Happiness
Happiness is a thing unto itself.
It arises independently of other factors,
especially the experience of comfort.
We seem to spend so much time
trying to figure out how to be happy.
The matter is almost laughable.
Take a moment to breathe.
Take a moment to recognize
the uncontrived happiness within.
Universal Spirituality
Notice that I use the term “spirituality” in a sense that is beyond any particular spiritual system or religion. Regardless of how we are trained spiritually – or by whom – I assert that there are a small number of attributes of spiritual health that pertain to us all. We can cultivate these attributes in ways that avoid the buzz words and trappings that often limit spiritual communality. Art is a good medium for this because it is often non-verbal, and where it is verbal,
it opens up new ways of saying familiar things,
as well as offering familiar ways of saying new things.
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