I recently partook of a retweet chain, with the simple premise of "My religious beliefs in 2016 vs now". I get the impression 2016 was chosen instead of "5 years ago" or "10 years ago" because that was a pivotal point in contemporary culture. Many people were radicalized that year, mostly in terms of politics, but also on the religious plane (for sincere motives or otherwise). That being said, I had to really think about what I believed at the time. In light of that, I've decided to take a step back and examine my religious journey up to now.
Childhood and Adolescence: Christianity to Atheism
I was born to a Roman Catholic family and baptized accordingly. My mother was devout enough to teach at our parish's CCD program, though she retired from this after my Confirmation (she didn't even wait for my other siblings to finish CCD), and by all appearances besides that, she led a secular, materialistic lifestyle. My father was quite devout until I turned about 8 or 9, at which point he embraced the theory of evolution and became skeptical of the Bible's narrative. He made a point to read children's biology books to me and take me to evolution exhibits. My mother didn't take any issue with that, but the two still put me through the end of CCD to please my grandparents.
At around 11, I came across popular atheist channels on YouTube: Amazing Atheist, thunderf00t, Penn Jillette, and so on. I watched their content with great amusement and admiration, and joined the ranks of what today would be called "neckbeards" (though my hygiene and fashion never dipped that low). Since Confirmation is normally given by the Catholic Church at 13, I still had a couple years of CCD to go, and as you might imagine, it was a bit of a slog for me.
Young Adulthood: Back to Christianity
I became less strident in my atheism as the years went on. I was mellowed out on the matter by about age 15. At age 18, in senior year of high school, I took AP Spanish Literature, which walked through a broad historical sketch of Spanish-language literature. One of the last texts covered was the short story San Manuel bueno, mártir by Miguel de Unamuno. It was about a Christ-like priest in a backwater town, who it turns out was secretly a skeptic, but did his duties out of compassion for the townsfolk. The priest's virtue persuaded a fellow atheist to, notwithstanding his unwavering skepticism, ordain after the priest's death and carry the torch. As I was a lukewarm atheist at the time, I sympathized with the thrust of the story. It was probably the first time since childhood that I came to view Christianity in a positive light.
That was in spring of 2016; I went off to college in the fall. As mentioned at the outset, this was a time when many people in my generation became radicalized in terms of politics, social ethics, aesthetics, and indeed religion. I had been on the periphery of the radical left (socially, not quite politically) in some respects in high school, but by 2016 I had broken with it and was concomitantly drawn to the amorphous "alt-right". I hadn't yet embraced Christianity at this point, but as mentioned, I was developing sympathy for it—and as Christianity was one of the many things that drove the left crazy, I became all the more sympathetic. I won't dwell too much on my politics, but I'll note that while I did start as a bit of a spiteful troll, it didn't take long before I started reading the political, ethical, economic, etc. works of the Western tradition, so I did come to have more genuine motivations behind my beliefs.
It wasn't until the age of 20 that I started to seriously consider Christian doctrine on its own terms, rather than as a utilitarian social force with erroneous beliefs. I read an excellent book called How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Tom Woods. I enjoyed much of Woods' political content at the time, and as I considered him a witty and intelligent figure, I ventured into his smaller but no less significant Catholic output, including that book. He certainly confirmed much of what I believed about the Catholic Church being a force for social good: the chapters discuss the Church's contributions to science, art, economics, architecture, philosophy, etc. However, his overarching thesis was that the Catholic view that a divine Creator set the world in motion with knowable laws was essential to these contributions, not just incidentally, but because it was correct. After pondering this message, I determined to return to the Church and study the doctrine. I began reading the Bible, as well as Augustine, Aquinas, and their pagan progenitors, Plato and Aristotle.
One might note that I did not mention going to mass or praying. I did those things as well, but they didn't come so naturally to me as study did. Truthfully, I spent more time on the philosophers than I did on the Bible itself. I had the following problem, which I never resolved: we may begin from first principles and derive a solid foundation for theology, but at what step does one derive the Lord's Prayer, or the saving power of Christ, and so on? I made the leap of faith and prayed anyway, but I never quite came to terms with this gap between universal metaphysics and particular dogmas. I might also add that at this time I listened to the Great Courses' lectures on Western Philosophy. I recall the lecturer on Plotinus opened by describing his work as "pure spirituality", which, given my quandary, piqued my interest. Perhaps there is an alternate timeline where I then immediately dive into the Enneads and become a polytheistic Neoplatonist; alas, for one reason or another, that never came to pass.
The Transition from Christianity
Having spent my college years on the "alt-right", I often came across the enigmatic Julius Evola on reading lists, memes, and so forth. I initially wrote him off as a fascist (I associated more with the libertarians and reactionaries of the alt-right trichotomy) and paid him no mind. Over time, I began to notice that his quotations and cited ideas were more reactionary than fascist, and so I ended up reading his works with some tepid curiosity. I first read Men Among the Ruins, mainly because of the excitement from finding it in-person at a Barnes & Noble—an edgy author, right there in the local shopping mall! While I found his thinking in that work a little obtuse, especially from my stalwart libertarian-rationalist perspective, I was intrigued enough to push on and read Revolt Against the Modern World, his magnum opus.
This work whetted my aforementioned appetite for pure spirituality. I would almost compare Evola's method to archaeology: piecing together the doctrines and myths from various civilizations all over history to form a broad yet pure picture of religion. Whereas my younger atheist self tended to regard all myths and customs as foolish superstitions, Evola helped me to see the logic (even if it's not strict rationalism) behind all of that on a metaphysical level. If Woods got me to appreciate Catholic doctrine for its influence on material and social quality of life, Evola got me to appreciate religion in its own right, independent of prosperity and other temporal concerns. Fascinated with his method, style, and conclusions, I added most of Evola's other works to my to-read list, including Doctrine of Awakening: Self-Mastery According to the Earliest Buddhist Texts.
Here, a more personal event comes into play. At age 22, I graduated college. If you did the math earlier, you'd deduce now that I graduated in 2020, just in time for a pandemic. Since about high school, I worked at a neighborhood doctor's office on and off, and I ended up working there full time after graduation (there were few other employment opportunities, as you might imagine). At the macro-level, my dismal employment prospects stressed me out. At the micro-level, I was going crazy from dealing with the chaos and hostility of the front desk at a medical office during a pandemic. Driving home after a particularly hectic and rage-filled night, I recalled the aforementioned subtitle: Self-Mastery. I was mentally bruised and battered by forces wildly out of my control, so the idea of winning some modicum of psychic autonomy for myself was appealing. So I ordered Evola's book on the Pāli Canon.
Arriving at Buddhism
Whereas the texts I've mentioned so far more or less nudged me, I speak without hyperbole when I say Doctrine of Awakening completely transformed me. Every page seemed to cleave through my mind like an axe; even now when I recall a given passage, I can picture its place on the page. Absolutely every atheistic and Christian residue from my past evaporated. The nature and problems of reality were laid bare, yet in magnificent stature. Evola's fiery prose combined with the ice-cold clarity of the canonical quotations blew me away.
To begin with, my thirst for pure spirituality was finally sated. The Dhamma was presented to me as a universally accesible and universally valid doctrine, free from the dross of dogma and dialectics—the two elements which I so struggled to unite as a Catholic. The Catholic doctrine of sin and
necessity of salvation require certain stories and arguments to be true,
but the Four Noble Truths, Dependent Origination, and so on are evident
no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in—even in the
profoundest and most exalted states of existence. Beyond this, the τέλος of Dhamma resonated with me much stronger than anything else. I found the cessation of dukkha to be not a mere quietist treatment of anxiety, but the single greatest conquest one could undertake. Whereas others so carelessly decry nibbāna as nihilistic or wimpy, I came to see it as the inconstestable highest good: pure, incorruptible perfection, hence "the Unconditioned".
In this respect, one of Evola's greatest strengths was his focus on the ariyan character. Far from being merely a racial ideal (Evola insisted that physical race is ultimately unimportant compared to one's inner character), the ariya is a true aristocrat in the hierarchy of beings. Sort of like an ontological "personality type", the ariya resolutely prefers truth and purity to all else, and so naturally rises above the more typical residents of saṃsāra, those ruled by pleasure and pain, fear and hope, etc. To such people the ariya appears radiant, invincible, exalted, beyond god-like: along these lines, possibly my favorite description from Evola himself is how the Awakened One, abiding in mettā, "paralyzes hostile beings, disarms them and makes them retreat, because it arouses in them the feeling that their limited selves are facing the limitless" (op. cit., p. 163, emphasis mine).
Exploring Buddhism
While Doctrine of Awakening primarily focuses on the teachings of the Pāli Canon (mostly from the suttas, vinaya-piṭaka, and Visuddhimagga; I recall no citations of the abhidhamma-piṭaka), Evola nonetheless includes some references to Mahāyāna, with one of the last chapters covering the Chán/Zen school. His main interest in that regard was the matter of practicing as a layman.
Anyone who considers the problem of the adaptability of the ascesis of the Ariya to modern times, will ask himself to what extent the precept of "departure" [pabbajjā] as a real abandonment of home and of the world, and as the isolation of a hermit, must be taken literally. The texts sometimes consider a triple detachment, one physical, another mental, and the third both physical and mental [Aṅguttara Nikāya 4.138; original text erroneously cites 4.132]. If the last naturally represents the most perfect form—at least so long as the struggle lasts—it is the second that should claim the particular attention of most people today and that, moreover, was given greater emphasis in Mahāyāna developments, including Zen Buddhism. Besides, even the canonical texts mention the possibility of an interpretation of the concept of "departure" that is mainly symbolical; thus "home" is considered, for example, to be equivalent to the elements that make up common personality—and similar interpretations are given for wandering and for property [e.g. Saṃyutta Nikāya 22.3]. . . .
Once detachment, viveka, is interpreted mainly in this internal sense, it appears perhaps easier to achieve it today than in a more normal and traditional civilization. One who is still an "Aryan" spirit in a large European or American city, with its skyscrapers and asphalt, with its politics and sport, with its crowds who dance and shout, with its exponents of secular culture and of soulless science and so on—among all this he may feel himself more alone and detached and nomad than he would have done in the time of the Buddha, in conditions of physical isolation and of actual wandering. (op. cit., p. 103)
The more technical problems of legality and sustenance probably inform Evola's considerations here. An itinerant beggar's lifestyle is illegal in the modern West, closing it off to all those except whoever will uproot and move to a Theravādin country (leaving aside the issues of immigrating, learning the language, getting ordained, etc., the institutions in such countries aren't so ideal themselves; vide some of the works of Paññobhāsa). Even if you could evade the law, beggars are generally frowned upon and receive little support in the West. Evola only hints at this issue in one of his final works: "But this [Traditionalist writings] does not resolve the practical, personal problem—apart from the case of the man who is blessed with the opportunity for material isolation—of those who cannot or will not burn their bridges with current life, and who must therefore decide how to conduct their existence, even on the level of the most elementary reactions and human relations" (Ride the Tiger, p. 3). So with this problem in mind, I kept Theravāda as my lodestar, but also branched out into Mahāyāna and Vajrāyāna, in addition to other religious schools like Taoism, Saṃkhya, and Neoplatonism.
Today, at age 25, I am a committed Theravāda Buddhist. I rely mostly on the teachings of the sutta-piṭaka, though I do sometimes venture into the vinaya-piṭaka and abhidhamma-piṭaka. While I have found some good material from studying other schools, nothing has surpassed the stark clarity and eminent nobility of the Pāli Canon. However, as mentioned in an earlier post, I attend a local Chán monastery, since it is my closest option for retreats, public teachings, and ceremonies. I am happy to say that the monastics there put special emphasis on the original teachings of the Buddha.
Given his controversial status, I will also add some final remarks on Julius Evola. While Evola has been (and still is) quite influential for me, I do not ever call myself "Evolian", for two main reasons. First, I regard him primarily as an exponent of older traditions, not an innovator presenting a brand new system; he said the same to his students, encouraging them to study the ancient texts he referred to. As the Zen saying goes: the finger can point to the Moon, but woe to those who mistake the finger for the Moon. Second, while I do think Evola made some spiritual attainments (he seems to have practiced an eclectic mix of Hermetism, Taoism, and Tantra) and thus has that much more insight into spiritual texts, I do not believe he was an arahant or anything equivalent. Certainly we may lend our ears to those more accomplished than ourselves, but there is none more accomplished than the Buddha and his disciples: hence I am a Buddhist, not an Evolian.
Some Spiritual Experiences
So runs my doctrinal evolution: from Catholicism, to atheism, back to Catholicism, to finally Theravāda. I will conclude with a few noteworthy episodes in my spiritual practice.
Activated Ki
In 2021, I began a regular meditation schedule. Every morning I would rise at about 5 AM, give myself 10 minutes to walk around and "wake up", and then meditate on the breath in seated posture for about 30-40 minutes. I had the following experience in October of 2021. In the midst of this meditation, I found myself wandering in thought, yet persistently coming back to the meditation. At some point, I thought something like "I must focus—and yet, there is no I to focus". I suddenly felt like I was withdrawing into my body, specifically my upper-chest area. My exterior senses felt distant and faint, and I felt an intense interior burning. Regarding the intensity, this experience felt "more real" than anything I had felt before, even the sharpest pain and deepest anguish. At first, too cautious to disturb the experience, I merely observed it. As I did, I noticed that the breath did not continue on its own, and that I had to keep it up manually. Before long, my mind became excited with the idea that this was some kind of attainment. After a few minutes, as I was trying to recall the formula for first jhāna, I re-emerged into normal sense-perception. I wasn't sure what I found, but I was excited by it, and felt invigorated after the end of the meditation. I have only reproduced this experience a couple more times since then.
A few months later, I reached out to an American Zen monk to enquire about a retreat. He asked me about my experience with Buddhism, and I mentioned this event. He surmised that I had "activated my ki (or prāṇa)", and that it was a product of being released from my mental constraints. What little I know about those concepts comes from Taoist and Hindu teachings, not the Dhamma. Nonetheless, if I understand prāṇa as "the substance of the mind", and if I trust my impression that it felt "more real" than ordinary experience, I would venture to say I experienced a phase-shift of consciousness, though perhaps an abortive one. Going with the tiloka model of the sense-realm (kāmaloka), form-realm (rūpaloka), and formless-realm (arūpaloka)—each one ontologically subtler or "purer" than the last—I would say that, since I felt myself withdraw from the physical senses, inwards (that is, in the direction of the heart-mind, citta), I approached the boundary of rūpaloka, though as my physical senses were still faintly present, I do not think that I crossed fully into that phase of consciousness.
Probably more than anything else, this has had the greatest effect on my faith in the Dhamma. While it was not a realization of any of the Four Truths or the Three Marks (notwithstanding the sharp thought of anattā, which was more of an admonition than a realization), it seemed to be a partial confirmation of the tiloka: in short, it was the indubitable realization that there is more to the world than mere matter.
Lucid Dreams
In my studies of Vajrāyāna, I have become most interested in the Six Yogas of Naropa, particularly Dream, Sleep, and Bardo Yoga. In spring of 2022, I attempted some of the bedtime practices (lying in the lion's posture, visualizing a red sphere at my throat cakraṃ, etc.) that are supposed to induce a yogic lucid dream. None of them directly bore fruit, in fact a couple times I think I just excited myself too much to fall asleep. It was in June 2022, however, that I actually had a brief lucid dream, after I had set aside all the bedtime practices.
It began as a normal dream. I don't recall much of what happened, but I at least remember walking around my old college campus on a summer night, and seeing it bustle with students. At some point I encountered a female friend (I had spoken to her in person that evening). She was walking with a group of her friends, then she addressed me and came up to me. She grabbed my arm, and the dream suddenly became lucid. Even moreso than the activation of my ki, this felt "more real" than ordinary experience. The air felt sharp and cold. Her grip was not strong, but it felt magnified and overwhelming. Her face seemed clearer than when I saw her in waking life. The gentle summer breeze felt like a howling gust around me. And then, as I came to the realization that this was indeed a lucid dream, I made eye-contact with my friend and willed her to say something. When she said precisely what I desired, I yelped in amazement and awoke with a start. I will not disclose precisely what I had her say, only that it was lewd, and that I regret wasting the opportunity on lust rather than taking advantage of it as a meditative exercise. That said, given that dreaming consciousness consists only of forms, I am more confident saying that I briefly experienced rūpaloka here.
That was the only time I had a proper lucid dream. I will mention one other dream I had, quite recently, in April 2023. I had a string of violent dreams at this time, mostly involving home-invaders and assailants. In the last one I can remember, a strange man cornered me in an underground room, brandished a big knife, and pointed it at me, saying he was going to kill me. The dream did not feel anything like the one described above, but rather dull and murky, like a normal non-lucid dream. Nonetheless, as soon as he made that threat, I felt my attention automatically come to the tip of my nose and the sensation of the breath. The man's hostile expression didn't go away, but he sheathed his weapon and left the room. I awoke shortly thereafter.
Saṃvega
I will conclude with more of an emotional experience than those above. In August 2022, I was playing Final Fantasy VI. I played the game once when I was about 12, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A year ago, out of nostalgia, I purchased the pixel remaster on PC. What follows are some minor spoilers for the first act of the game, so beware, in case you were looking to play it.
In the midst of a war, the evil Gestahl Empire poisons the water supply of Doma Castle, killing basically everyone inside except for the samurai Cyan Garamonde. In the fallout, Cyan storms the nearby Imperial camp and joins forces with two rebels, the martial monk Sabin and the ninja Shadow. The three adventure together for a while, shortly thereafter arriving in a haunted forest. There, they board a phantom train which turns out to be a train to the Underworld. The spirit of the train tries to bear them away, but they defeat it and the specters aboard. Before they get on their way though, they witness the departed souls of Doma from earlier. They all begin to board the train, and Cyan cries out to them. He gets one last goodbye to his countrymen, particularly his wife and son, before the train carries them off into the darkness. Cyan broods while Sabin and Shadow observe in quiet sympathy.
As I watched this scene, the following thought suddenly echoed in my head: "only through the path of asceticism can one avoid such a gloomy fate in the afterlife". The ones who resisted the Underworld's forces were the trained warriors, not mere brigands but the kind who undertook specialized training and adhered to a martial code. In Japan, the game's country of origin, those three archetypes in particular—samurai, budōka, ninja—all traditionally draw on some aspect of Buddhist ascesis. On the other hand, the ordinary citizens and even the lower ranking soldiers of Doma had no power to resist the train and its entourage of ghosts, and so they resigned themselves to their fate, just as an ordinary person swoons in the face of death. That all added up with what I learned both from the Dhamma and from Evola's assessment of religions in general. I was compelled to review his chapter on the afterlife in Revolt Against the Modern World and his appendix on the bardo realms in Yoga of Power, as well as its subject, the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
What really ensued in me, after that scene, was a mixture of urgency and dread called saṃvega in Pāli. Perhaps it's ironic, but the narrative in a video game got me to see the futility in playing games (at least for a little while) among other hedonic pursuits. Above all, I became intensely aware that the trials of death could come at any moment, and that any indulgence in sensual pleasures was a waste of precious time. The dark, dissolving forces of death have no ounce of sympathy in them, least of all for those limited by the horizons of dukkha. Our only hope is to train as warriors to face down and conquer the army of the Lord of Death.
While this saṃvega has never really left my mind, it has abated since then; I continue to enjoy some luxuries and a social life, though I place study and meditation far beyond those. With that said, I will conclude with a couple of kindred quotations, one (which I recently tweeted) from the master in Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery:
I must only warn you of one thing. You have become a different person in the course of these years. For this is what the art of archery means: a profound and far-reaching contest of the archer with himself. Perhaps you have hardly noticed it yet, but you will feel it very strongly when you meet your friends and acquaintances again in your own country: things will no longer harmonize as before. You will see with other eyes and measure with other measures. It has happened to me too, and it happens to all who are touched by the spirit of this art. (pp. 65-66)
And another from Cologero, author of the great esotericist blog Gornahoor:
Before you commit to an "esoteric center", consider the consequences. Your life will never be the same again. Whatever you used to enjoy will become empty experiences. Your friends won’t understand you. And it is not very pleasant, as the young Prince [Siddhattha Gotama] discovered, to see life without any illusions.
And if you quit halfway, you will be worse off than if you had never begun at all. ("Esoteric Initiatic Centers")
