The first category is institutionalized religion, which is brought to him by a person's growing environment;
The second category is personal experience religion, which comes from the direct connection between man, God and Buddha.
Various religious experiences focuses on the second category. James collected a lot of materials, especially biographies and letters of various religious figures, which showed us where the most firm and unreasonable beliefs came from.
For example, someone talked about a mysterious experience in a letter, saying that one day he was discussing elves with his friends, and suddenly he felt that the whole world was boiling in front of him, as if a vague fate loomed from distant space. He has never felt so clearly that God is in his body, surrounding him and filling the whole room. There seems to be some mysterious force flowing in the air. He opened his mouth and found his voice as calm as a prophet.
Another example is the memory of a priest, who said that standing on the top of the mountain at night had some kind of experience of harmony between man and nature. The individual soul is integrated with the boundless universe, and the feeling of things around it completely disappears. He only felt that he stood with God, with all the beauty, love, sadness and temptation in the world, and suddenly felt an unspeakable joy. He believes that at that moment he faced God and was reborn in God. From then on, no discussion about the existence of God can shake his faith. He believes that everyone who has seen God must have had the same experience as himself.
Indeed, many people have told the same story. What is particularly intriguing is that no matter which religion believers have had the same experience, the only difference is that Christians and God are one, Brahman and Brahma are one, and Buddhists and Buddhists are one.
James didn't study Confucianism in China. In fact, there are many similar cases in the Confucian world. There are many examples in Biography of Wang Yangming. Religious people often say that "all religions in the world are interlinked and converted." Although this statement cannot be established in a rational sense, it seems to be true from the * * * nature of mysterious experience.
In the materials listed by william james, "universal consciousness" and "sense of immortality" are almost everywhere.
I quote a typical story of someone in the book: "I discussed poetry and philosophy with two friends until midnight." It took me a long time to get back to my apartment by carriage. My mind is still deeply immersed in the topic we discussed, but I am not consciously thinking, but in a quiet and passive enjoyment, let all kinds of ideas, images and emotions flow naturally in my heart. Suddenly, without warning, I found myself surrounded by a red cloud. For a moment, I really thought it was a flame, but there was a fire somewhere nearby. But soon, I knew that the flame was burning inside me. I feel a kind of joy, a great happiness, followed by an indescribable sense of openness. It dawned on me that the universe is not made of inanimate matter, but there is life. I feel immortal. No, it's not that I believe in immortality, but that I am immortal at that time. Everyone I meet is immortal. I see the universe for the happiness of every member. Although this epiphany lasted only a few seconds, my memory and belief in it have not been erased until 25 years later. "
This kind of experience is not a religious experience, but coincides with various religious experiences. When the mind is immersed, there is a considerable probability of entering this "epiphany moment".
What are the ways to get these mysterious experiences?
In the Vedic Classics of ancient India, yoga has eight steps, one of which is called Zen, also known as meditation or meditation for short. The content is meditation. The Buddha borrowed this technique to give new content to meditation. ?
? Zen, which existed long before the Buddha, is a way of practice of ancient Indians and belongs to a kind of yoga. ?
? Today's yoga has become similar to aerobics, but it was originally a religious exercise, but it is not much different from all kinds of yoga taught in the gym today in form, only emphasizing breathing, meditation and meditation, and finally reaching the realm of Brahma and me.
? The so-called integration of Brahma and me is simply to feel that I am integrated with the universe, and I can transcend the world of appearances and realize the truth behind appearances.
Zhuangzi talked a lot about breathing, breathing and meditation, a bit like yoga and qigong.
Today's neuroscience tells us that as long as people enter a state of meditation, regardless of religious beliefs or specific beliefs, brain waves will form a particularly neat rhythm, and people will have a mysterious experience of harmony between man and nature and selflessness.
If this person is a Buddhist, he feels that he has seen the paradise. If he is a Christian, he experiences the so-called "joy of God", and the religious interpretation is always round.
How should we understand the seemingly absurd and famous proposition of Yangming's theory of mind that there is nothing outside the heart in Biography?
(1) Cosmic consciousness and sense of immortality
Wang Yangming has many grotesque views. To understand these views, we need to understand a major premise of Yangming's mind, that is, the universe is a huge living body. Since the universe is a huge living body, it is an organ or a cell in the universe, which is as big as mountains and rivers, as small as plants, fish and insects, as big as the sun, moon and stars, and as small as ourselves.
This mysterious truth can be confirmed by simple observation: both food and animals can become human food and nourish human life, while medicinal stones can treat human diseases. If they are not integrated, how can they be nourished and treated?
As a member of the universe, ghosts and gods are certainly related to us.
Some disciples didn't understand. Wang Yangming inspired him to say, "Look at the heart of heaven and earth."
The disciple replied, "I heard that man is the heart of heaven and earth." This is from Zhang Zai's Heart is Heaven and Earth.
Wang Yangming asked again: "What is human heart?"
The disciple replied, "The human heart is just a clever mind."
Wang Yangming began to explain: "It can be seen that there is only this spirit between heaven and earth, but people distinguish you, me, him and everything through formal mistakes." My spirit is the master of heaven, earth and ghosts. If the sky does not have my spirit, who will look up to its height? Without my vision, who will overlook the depths of the earth? If ghosts and gods don't have my spirit, who will say their good or bad? As long as I leave my soul, there will be no ghosts and gods in the world; If my sobriety leaves this world, ghosts and gods, I will not be sober. That's it. Everything in heaven and earth is one, circulating in one breath, and there is no gap between them. "
These words also teach people to get rid of separation. Although the truth is very high and morally attractive, it is puzzling anyway, so the disciple asked again, "Everything in heaven, earth, ghosts and gods has obviously existed since ancient times. Why did they all disappear together when my spirit disappeared? "
Wang Yangming's answer is: "Look at those dead people, their spirit has dissipated, and their universe and everything have dissipated!" " This seems to mean that, as an objective reality, everything in heaven, earth, ghosts and gods does not depend on someone's survival, but in everyone's subjective world, when people die, everything they perceive naturally disappears.
If you have to interpret it rationally, you will understand this step at most, but this is obviously not what Wang Yangming wants to express. What's he trying to say? Why is his logic so strange? When we look at it from william james's point of view, the fog suddenly disappears.
Wang Yangming's understanding of the unity of all things and the unity of the self-universe obviously comes from mysterious experience, but it is impossible to transform the feelings in mysterious experience into philosophical propositions with clear logic. Wang Yangming has been committed to this impossible task. If he were a monk or a Taoist, things would be easy. All he has to do is teach others to meditate.
Anyone who enters meditation will have this mysterious experience. At that time, it was entirely possible for everyone to communicate with each other. "How many people can know when Zen guests meet?"
If you ask some religious people who have had mysterious experiences to answer Wang Yangming's disciple's last question, they will probably say, "Your spirit will not disappear, because people will not really die. The so-called death is just a part of eternal life. "
Wang Yangming probably feels the same way, but he is unwilling to admit such a thing out of Confucian standpoint.
Different from ordinary people, religious people will deliberately pursue this state-hermits through silent prayer, Brahmins through yoga, Buddhists through meditation, Taoists through meditation, and even Confucianism, from Er Cheng, Zhu to Wang Yangming, all emphasize the understanding of justice in meditation.
There is also such content in Zhuangzi. For example, Luo Hongxian, a private disciple of Wang Yangming, described his meditation experience like this: "When it is extremely quiet, I feel my heart is like a cloud in the sky, a ichthyosaur in the sea, and the world is in harmony." With this understanding, we can naturally know what Wang Shouren called "Heaven, Earth, Ghosts and I are one".
The story of the famous "Flower Tree in the Rock": When Wang Yangming was playing in Nanzhen, a friend pointed to the flower tree in the rock and asked such a question based entirely on common sense: "If there is really nothing outside my heart, what does this flower tree blooming in the mountains have to do with my heart?" Yes, the flowers in the rocks bloom and fall, regardless of anyone's subjective will. Doesn't it grow in the rock, but in my heart?
Wang Yangming's answer is a bit sly: "When you don't see it, it dies with your heart;" When you see it, the color of the flower suddenly becomes clear, so this flower is not in your heart. "
This explanation easily reminds us of Becker's proposition "Being is perceived", but the two are only similar in form, because Wang Yangming only cares about moral issues, and he has no interest in the purely intellectual philosophy in the West.
Wang Yangming's so-called "thing" means "meaning is thing", that is to say, the object of thinking is thing. "Unreasonable outside the heart, nothing outside the heart" is based on this premise, so it can be seen that asking a friend of a flower tree in the rock will obviously have the wrong meaning. Later generations will take this passage out in isolation, make all kinds of mysterious and specious interpretations, create a mysterious feeling, and make Yangming's mind show beautiful Zen.
On the other hand, when moral heart is related to everything, of course, what happens is moral relationship. When any kind of moral relationship occurs, its moral significance is of course still in the heart. So, when this friend pointed to the flowers in the rock and asked a question, he asked a simple epistemological question, but Wang Shouren didn't answer it from an epistemological point of view. If he had to give an epistemological answer, he would definitely say, "Of course, the flower tree in the rock exists objectively. Whether we see it or not, it exists there. Do I think that's an illusion in my heart! Of course not, only Buddhism would say so. "
However, if we understand Wang Yangming from the perspective of mysterious experience, the easiest thing to think of is that he had an experience of integration of all things, but for one thing, it is not clear. Secondly, he always wanted to use the framework of Confucian philosophy to explain this experience, for fear of falling into the "wrong path" of Buddhism and Taoism.
This mysterious experience understands his strange philosophy: all mysterious experiences, no matter what clothes you wear, are in the final analysis a special state of the brain nervous system. People from different cultural backgrounds give it different meanings.
Can drugs give people the same mysterious experience, so that people can eat whatever they want and no longer have to practice hard?
The most common but ineffective drug is alcohol.
James believes: "For those poor people with low education, wine has replaced symphony and literature."
If you are a person who loves music and literature, you can easily understand the meaning of this sentence.
Excellent music and literature can not only be "touching", but also make people forget themselves and have a religious mysterious experience.
Music has a better effect, especially symphony, because its expression form is more abstract. Secondly, among all abstract expressions, it has the richest changes, the strongest gas field and the strongest power.
There is a theory in aesthetics that music is the highest art form, and other art forms should consciously approach music if they want to be perfect.
Misty poetry is actually a kind of language art close to music. You don't want to understand. On the contrary, ignorance is the correct way to appreciate.
You should relax, stimulate your audio-visual experience through the words and tones in the poem, and indulge in it like enjoying a beautiful music. Once you try to understand the meaning of a poem with reason and straighten out its logic, you will only ask for it.
People who don't understand this truth often criticize obscure poems as obscure. They should think about the ending of Jin Yong's novel Chivalrous Man. It is because the hero can't read that he understands the essence of martial arts in the poem, but so many literate people can't understand it all their lives.
We live in a concrete world, and everything around us has "meaning" for us.
In other words, meaning is function and utility.
We saw a pen and thought it was a writing tool without thinking. When you see a car, you know it's a means of transportation without thinking. This is a visual and functional understanding. When you look at a pen and a car, it is not a car. In other words, when you see a pen, you will think it is a writing tool without thinking, and when you see a car, you will think it is a means of transportation without thinking. At this time, you can easily enter the "epiphany moment" mentioned above and have your own mysterious experience.
Symphony is an art, which can easily take you out of concrete thinking and help you escape from all kinds of "meaningful" things in real life. Why is the song not effective? It's very simple, because the lyrics will bring specific content, or you can recognize the voice of a specific singer, which is the power to pull you back to the real world.
Wine can replace symphonies and literature because, in william james's words, drunken consciousness touched the tip of the iceberg of mysterious consciousness.
If we regard alcohol as an anesthetic, it is a kind of inferior anesthetic, but if even alcohol gives people a chance to have a little mysterious experience, will those professional anesthetics be more competent and happier? Like nitrous oxide?
Nitrous oxide is an anesthetic that came out in the18th century, and its invention and coming out process is extremely bumpy and complicated. It was not a doctor who used this gas at first, but a burlesque troupe. They found that as long as this gas is released during the performance, the mood of the actors and audience will be high, the atmosphere will become extraordinarily active, and a very mediocre joke will also attract laughter. Therefore, nitrous oxide is widely known as "laughing gas".
William james has carefully studied the anesthetic effect of nitrous oxide, and found that when nitrous oxide and air are mixed to a certain extent, it is easy to cause mysterious consciousness, and the parties will feel that there are infinitely far-reaching truths to be disclosed. Although the highest truth disappears without a trace after anesthesia, the impression left by that feeling will last for a long time.
Through the study of anesthetics, James came to a very important conclusion that there are all kinds of subconsciousness around our rational consciousness. We may not be aware of the existence of the subconscious mind all our lives, but as long as we meet the right stimulus, they will all appear at once.
The word subconscious is always associated with Freud's name today, but william james is the real founder of this concept. Of course, since it is the cornerstone, it will inevitably be very imperfect. Whether the mysterious experience is a manifestation of the subconscious mind, the frontier psychology society gives a negative answer. We can rethink the relationship between monotheism and polytheism from another angle, from the essence of mysterious experience.
A well-trained person can take the initiative to enter a special state of neural activity through meditation and feel that the "self" has merged into the "cosmic self", which is a wonderful "epiphany moment". Once a person with religious belief has experienced this experience, no force can shake his faith.
Let's look at a graduation poem by Zen master Lingyun Qin Zhi: "Looking for a swordsman for 30 years, leaves fall to the roots, and the branches are painted." I have never doubted the peach blossom since I saw it. "Poetry means that I have been fighting for Buddhism for 30 years, but the degree has been advancing and retreating until one day I saw a peach blossom and suddenly had an epiphany. Since then, my confidence has been firm and has never regressed.
After reading this poem, my tutor knew that Lingyun Qinzhi was really enlightened, so she graduated smoothly. Now, of course, you can understand that the moment Lingyun Qin Zhi "saw the peach blossom" was his "epiphany moment", which suddenly gave him a mysterious experience. You can also know that his tutor must have had this experience, so you can understand his poems.
However, does it really take 30 years to have an epiphany? Obviously, so many people who practice meditation can easily get into the state. Is it because Lingyun Qin used the wrong method? In addition, why does Zen still have "graduation works"?
In the study of meditation in modern science, in the eyes of scientists, the mysterious experience is not the appearance of gods and buddhas, but the misinterpretation of a special nerve activity by religious people with their own religious background.
In the past life when you fully understand these mysterious experiences, you have mastered the skills of obtaining mysterious experiences. Do you use it to strengthen the "faith" of your choice? Or is it used to regulate the nerves and cranial nerves and obtain inner peace?