When I visited the Po Lin Monastery in February of 1997, the final legs of the journey required a 45-minute ferry ride from Hong Kong to a quiet and underdeveloped island where a bus would then take you to the top of lush mountain landscape that encircled the remote buddhist temple, shrouding it quite literally in an opaque dense fog that only cleared intermittently on the day of my surreal visit. No one there spoke English—I was the only tourist there that day who could have used it— and the sole lunch option was a monk-cooked vegetarian meal eaten in silence at large round communal tables. This particular monastery was only founded in 1906 and had remained a quiet place of solitude for almost 100 years before they erected the world's largest bronze Buddha statue there in 1993. At 34 meters tall and 250 tonnes, it is a weighty mass on the landscape, lending a deeply thoughtful repose to the figure. At the time, it was one of the most foreign and otherworldly tourist places I could have visited. When I left Hong Kong a few days later though and needed a way to spend the last few bills of foreign currency I had at the airport, I should have seen the future of this place when I found this tacky souvenir—my buddha beer bottle opener key chain. Despite the obvious apostasy and desecration, for years I rubbed its tiny laminated belly whenever I was stuck in traffic, trying to remain calm by repeating the detached buddhist mantra about how pain in life is unavoidable but suffering over that pain is a choice. Meanwhile, a different kind of psychic pain was inflicted on Lantau Island where the 20x larger than life-size statue remained. In late 1997, a bridge was completed that connected the island directly to Hong Kong. In 1998, the new Hong Kong Airport—with its 40 million passengers per year— was completed on the northern side of the island. In 2005, Hong Kong Disneyland was added to reclaimed land just off the coast of Lantau. And in 2006, a massive cable car gondola system was erected to carry passengers swiftly up to the top of the mountain almost directly from the busy airport 25 minutes below. I don't know the visitor numbers at Po Lin now, but it must number in the millions and the serenity of any spiritual retreat there has surely been lost.

Despite all this commercial despoiling of one religious location, Buddhism in general is still in good shape and from my point of view is likely to remain so for many years to come. To be clear, there are mystical elements to the belief system that I think should be forgotten. Traditional biographies of the man who found enlightenment under a bodhi tree generally include "numerous miracles, omens, and supernatural events...including: a painless birth conceived without intercourse; no need for sleep, food, medicine, or bathing; omniscience; and the ability to suppress karma" (however that is achieved). In modern times though there has been a more concerted effort to portray a secular picture of Siddhartha Gautama's life by omitting the traditional supernatural elements of his early biographies. In any event, the ancient Indians were generally unconcerned with historical chronologies and were instead more focused on philosophy, so many of the Buddhist texts reflect this tendency and provide a clearer picture of what Gautama may have taught rather than of the dates and events of his natural (or otherwise purported) life. In sympathy with this modern evolution of Buddhism, I have also focused more on its philosophical beliefs when I evaluated its main tenets against my worldview based on an evolutionary philosophy. Specifically, I had this to say in my Survival of the Fittest Philosophers section on the Buddha:

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Guatama Buddha (563-483 BCE) spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded.

Survives
Gautama discovered what Buddhists call the Middle Way - a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. Yes. We must strike the balances between short-term and long-term, self and society, and competition and cooperation. Anyone preaching one or the other is overly simple.

The Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Nothing wrong here once “right” is understood.

Rejection of the infallibility of accepted scripture: Teachings should not be accepted unless they are borne out by our experience and are praised by the wise. Buddha would have been a strong proponent of the scientific method for discovering truth.

There is no intermediary between mankind and the divine; the Buddha is only a guide and teacher for beings who must tread the path of Nirvana themselves to attain spiritual awakening and understand reality. Buddha would also be a strong opponent of organized religion. Focus on the secular definition of divine being excellent and delightful. Think of the path of Nirvana as the path filled with bliss, peace, and enlightenment. Define your mind and personality as your spirit. A guide for understanding the reality of these things would be wonderful.

Nirvana: It is possible for sentient beings to realize a dimension of awareness that is totally unconstructed and peaceful, and end all suffering due to the mind's interaction with the conditioned world. Suffering can be alleviated by doing what is possible to live well and accepting the world for what it is when temporary pain is unavoidable.

Needs to Adapt
The Four Noble Truths: 1) suffering is an ingrained part of existence; 2) the origin of suffering is craving for sensuality, acquisition of identity, and annihilation; 3) suffering can be ended; 4) following the Noble Eightfold Path is the means to accomplish this. Suffering does seem unavoidable, but its absolute root cause is the battle between life and death. Sensuality and identity are necessary for life in the short and long run. Suffering comes when we are unable to balance the needs of the short-term and the needs of the long-term. Pain is inflicted when others are unable to strike this balance, or the bodies or environments we inherited fail to provide life.

Gone Extinct
Rebirth is the doctrine that upon death the evolving consciousness becomes one of the contributing causes for the arising of a new aggregation. The consciousness in the new person is neither identical nor entirely different from that in the deceased but the two form a causal continuum or stream. Rebirth is conditioned by the karmas (actions of body, speech, and mind) of previous lives; good karmas will yield a happier rebirth, bad karmas will produce one which is more unhappy. The basic cause for this is the abiding of consciousness in ignorance; when ignorance is uprooted, rebirth ceases. There is no such thing as reincarnation. Neither is there any way for learned behaviors or non-genetic changes to the body to be passed on to descendants. Capabilities can be passed on. Culture can be passed on. Focus on realizing your capabilities and contributing to a life-giving culture and you can be happy with the one life you lead.
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Please take a moment to share your own thoughts about this tradition if you think I have missed or misrepresented anything crucial to its consideration. As always, your words are welcome.

The Tao Te Ching is a short text comprising only about 5,000 Chinese characters organised into 81 brief sections. I can't read the original language version, but scholars say the writing style is "laconic, has few grammatical particles, and encourages varied, even contradictory interpretations. The rhetorical style combines two major strategies: short, declarative statements and intentional contradictions. The first of these strategies creates memorable phrases, while the second forces us to create our own reconciliations of the supposed contradictions." My taoist reaction to that is, 'Yuck! That is only a wisdom of uncertainty.' But let's see some of this style in action to further evaluate these contradictions.

Ineffable
The Way that can be told of is not an unvarying way;
The names that can be named are not unvarying names.
It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang;
The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind.

These are the famous first lines of the Tao Te Ching, stating that the Tao is "ineffable, nameless, goes beyond distinctions, and transcends language." We saw last week in my examination of the Upanishads that this kind of slipperiness of thought may be useful to keep the critics at bay, and while it can help to elicit humility, it also lacks the ability to promote necessary progress. While I appreciate this attempt at balance between black and white (that are really shades of gray) in comparison to the separation into black and white that is common in Judeo-Christian origins, a la the 10 Commandments, I find that these eastern traditions go too far, promoting a "certainty of uncertainty" that is wrong, maddening, and wasteful towards opportunity. This is a common theme among Asian wisdom traditions though, and unfortunately it will come up again in my critiques of Buddhism and Confucianism. For a sad look at how this has carried through to modern times, suffer through this video of last week's debate between Richard Dawkins and Deepak Chopra. Contained within the Tao though is possibly the original and primary example of this philosophical vacuity.

Emptiness
We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheel depends.
We turn clay to make a vessel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends.
We pierce doors and windows to make a house;
And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends.
Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what is not.

Circumference, area, volume, and space, are not 'things that are not'. Failure to see this should not demean the sight of other worthwhile works. Taking advantage of what there is though, here is what I recognised as what is useful and what is not within the general writings of the Tao.
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Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching (~600 BCE) traditionally considered the foundation of philosophical Taoism. According to Chinese traditions, Lao Tzu lived in the 6th century BCE. By the mid-twentieth century a consensus had emerged among scholars that the historicity of Lao Tzu was doubtful or unprovable and that the Tao Te Ching was a compilation of Taoist sayings by many hands.

Survives
According to the Tao Te Ching, humans have no special place within the Tao, being just one of its many manifestations. People have desires and free will and thus are able to alter their own nature. This is correct.

Needs to Adapt
Many people act "unnaturally," upsetting the natural balance of the Tao. The Tao Te Ching intends to lead students to a return to their natural state, in harmony with Tao. Technology may bring about a false sense of progress. The answer provided by Lao Tzu is not the rejection of technology, but instead seeking the calm state of wu wei. Wu wei, literally "non-action" or "not acting," is a central concept of the Tao Te Ching. The concept is very complex and reflected in the words' multiple meanings; it can mean not doing anything, not forcing, not acting (in the theatrical sense), creating nothingness, acting spontaneously, and flowing with the moment. It includes the concepts that value distinctions are ideological and seeing ambition of all sorts as originating from the same source. Lao Tzu used the term broadly with simplicity and humility as key virtues, often in contrast to selfish action. On a political level, it means avoiding such circumstances as war, harsh laws and heavy taxes. Some Taoists see a connection between wu wei and esoteric practices, such as the "sitting in oblivion," emptying the mind of bodily awareness and thought. Many people do upset the world with their actions, but the “natural state” of humans and animals is not something that should be returned to. The natural state was characterized by heavy competition, which required short-term-focused actions just to stay alive. Humans face little competition anymore except among themselves. It is time to progress to a cooperative long-term focus. That is the true way. That will not look like sitting in oblivion, but it will involve falling into the flow states described by positive psychology. The political suggestions are correct, but do not go far enough to explain the true purpose of government - the correcting of markets so as to ensure progress towards the survival of the species.

Gone Extinct
The numerous passages of the Tao Te Ching are ambiguous, and topics range from political advice for rulers to practical wisdom for people. Because the variety of interpretation is virtually limitless, not only for different people but for the same person over time, readers do well to avoid making claims of objectivity or superiority. This kind of ambiguity must be clarified. The claims of subjectivity over objectivity are the claims of the relativistic nihilist. As living things, the long-term survival of life is an objective good. Everything else flows from this.

In 1944, W. Somerset Maugham published The Razor's Edge, a book about an American fighter pilot traumatised by his experiences in World War I who sets off to find transcendent meaning in his life and ends up finding some in India. The epigraph to the book—taken from one of the Hindu Upanishads—reads, "The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard." It's a powerful metaphor symbolising the straight and narrow path we must tread in the attempt to lead a good life. A step to the side in either direction can lead to a difficult fall. This is one of the great thoughts from a text and a way of life that has had a long line of influence on the world.

Probably one of the oddest circumstances these ideas were ever to exert an influence over were the events surrounding the 1984 film adaptation of Maugham's book. According to an interview with the movie's director John Byrum, he had wanted to film an adaptation of The Razor's Edge in the early 1980s. Around this time, Byrum brought a copy of the book to his friend Margaret "Mickey" Kelley who was in the hospital after giving birth to her and her husband Bill Murray's child. Byrum said he got a call the next day at four AM, "and it was Mickey's husband, Bill [Murray]. He said, 'This is Larry, Larry Darrell'"—the hero protagonist and main man in search of meaning. Byrum and Murray subsequently drove off across America to write the screenplay.

This was in 1982, right after Murray had ascended to the Mount Olympus of America's comedy gods by following up his three year stint on Saturday Night Live (1977-1980) with starring roles in Meatballs (1979), Caddyshack (1980), and Stripes (1981). Thirty years later, after watching Murray's sad clown career unfold, this choice of his makes a bit more sense, but at the time no one was willing to accept this new direction from the golfing groundskeeper nemesis of gophers. While Murray was attached to the project, Byrum could not get a studio to finance The Razor's Edge. Only later, when Dan Aykroyd suggested that Murray could appear in Ghostbusters for Columbia Pictures in exchange for the studio greenlighting his passion project, were Murray and Byrum able to cut a deal with Columbia.

Filmed first, but released after Ghostbusters, The Razor's Edge was a commercial and critical failure. Reviews described it as "disjointed", "slow, overlong and ridiculously overproduced." Roger Ebert called it "flawed" and said the hero was "too passive, too contained, too rich in self-irony, to really sweep us along in his quest." Ebert placed the blame on Murray's shoulders, saying he "plays the hero as if fate is a comedian and he is the straight man." Meanwhile, Ghostbusters became the highest-grossing film of 1984. Talk about a precipitous drop in either direction—one towards trivial, supernatural buffoonery that was lapped up by the masses; the other towards an intellectually immature foray that was rejected by the intelligentsia. Poor Bill, just 34 years old at the time, failed to negotiate the narrow path between.

Upset over the failure of Razor's Edge, Murray took four years off from acting to study philosophy and history at the Sorbonne, and spend time with his family in their upstate New York Home, something akin to a Walden's Wood retreat. Had Murray followed this trail many years later and randomly come across my own historical and philosophical forays, he would have seen that I had this to say about the Upanishads and their fitness for survival in today's world:
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Upanishads (12th century BCE is the best guess for the first Upanishads) are philosophical texts considered to be an early source of Hindu religion. 200 or so are known but the first ten, the Mukhya, are the oldest and most important. The most recent of these were written in the last few centuries BCE.

Survives
3. Death as Teacher - The preferable and the pleasurable approach man. The intelligent one examines both and separates them. Yea, the intelligent one prefers the preferable to the pleasurable, (whereas) the ignorant one selects the pleasurable. Arise, awake, and learn by approaching the exalted ones, for that path is sharp as a razor’s edge, impassable, and hard to go by, say the wise. Finding the balance between short-term and long-term, competition and cooperation, self and society, is indeed difficult but necessary for life in the fullest sense.

Needs to Adapt
1. The Inner Ruler - Protect your Self through detachment. Do not covet, for whose is wealth? We are part of this world and desires are natural and necessary for the progress that saves us. Recognize the need for flexible detachment. Covet wisely what is truly needed for oneself and society. The nature of Self is: "That moves, that does not move; that is far off, that is very near; that is inside all this, and that is also outside all this." This mystical riddle intended to broaden one’s awareness should simply be replaced with the need to recognize that the individual is also part of a larger society and larger ecosystem of life. Theoretical grasp about Self is called Vidya, while to take delusory experiences perceived through the senses as true, constitutes Avidya. He who knows these two - both Vidya and Avidya together - attains immortality by transcending them. Actual immortality is not reached this way, but you must know your senses, your reason, and discovered knowledge to understand reality.

Gone Extinct
2. Who Moves the World? - It is the Ear behind the ears, Mind behind the mind, Speech behind speech, Vital Life behind life. A mystical riddle to try to imply supernatural gods at work in the universe. There are no such things. The gravitational pull of the sun moves the world. Ask a more precise question for a more precise answer.

4. Questions - What is the root cause of this world? The union of Spirit and Matter, Spirit being Prana or life force. How many divine elements hold the body? Space, air, fire, water, and earth (matter), and speech, mind, eye, and ear (senses) say they hold the body, but Prana holds them all. How does Prana come into and leave the body? Prana divides himself into five forms. When death comes, life is carried to heaven (if good), hell (if sinful), or the world (if both). Which elements sleep? The way all sunrays go back to the sun at sunset, so all senses go back to their master, the Mind. What do you get from meditating on the holy syllable of Om? One who meditates will merge with the supreme reality. Who is the person with sixteen divine attributes? This is the highest Brahman; there is nothing higher. Life is the force behind all that is good in the universe. Modern science has given us a much stronger understanding of the origins, divisions, and complexity of life. There is no heaven or hell or even souls to go to such places, and reincarnation is certainly impossible in any meaningful way that would transfer individual consciousness. Whatever life brings together, death destroys forever. (In this sense, decaying fossils could still be said to be dying.) Sleep is much better understood; some facts about it remain to be discovered, but since rays do not go back to the sun at sunset, this is a poor metaphor for furthering any understanding. Meditation has been found to relax the mind and body, which has long-term health benefits associated with the reduction in stress, but this does nothing to instruct us about reality other than to make our minds clearer for learning and thinking. Positive psychology is finding more than 16 attributes that humans have found to be necessary to live the good life. There is nothing divine about any of this and there will always be higher excellence to attain. A priesthood (Brahman) teaching falsehoods as truths and claiming to own knowledge through divine revelation has no claims on the highest levels of personal development.

5. Two Modes of Knowing - The knowledge that leads to Self Realization is Great or Divine Knowledge and everything else is Knowledge of the Material World. Though Knowledge of the Material World enables one to earn one’s bread and helps one to understand each object of the universe separately, it does not show the Ultimate Reality or Root Cause of this universe. To attain ultimate salvation, knowledge of supreme reality is attained through the practice of monkhood. Desires cause rebirth in the world and one who renounces all desires will have no such rebirth. There is no reason to separate knowledge into divine or profane categories. Truth is truth. No monks own it with a special brand of thinking, and no one gains anything by sitting still and suppressing all desires. Desires must be understood and channeled into action in this world.

6. Consciousness and its Phases - There are three letters in the word aum. The a stands for the state of wakefulness. The u stands for the dream state. In the state of deep sleep, represented by the sound m, there is no desire and consciousness is gathered in upon itself. But there is a fourth, transcendent state, invisible, ineffable, intangible, devoid of characteristics, inconceivable, indefinable, its sole essence being the consciousness of its own Self; the coming to rest of all relative existence; utterly quiet; peaceful; blissful: without a second: this is the Ātman, the Self; this is to be realized. Consciousness and brain wave states of wakefulness and sleep are better understood now. The empty state of meditation is merely another such state, beneficial though it is for small doses of rest.

7. From Food to Joy - describes the various degrees of happiness enjoyed by the different beings in creation through many meditations. Meditation is nice, but it is not the goal of life. The goal should never be an attempt to remove oneself from life.

8. The Microcosm of Man - The Self only was in the beginning. He thought, “Let me now create the worlds." He created water, light rays, death, and elements such as water. He thought, “Here are now the worlds. Let me create their controllers." He brought out man and gave him shape. Another Genesis-like origin story before science uncovered evolution back to the big bang.

9. Song and Sacrifice - Many meditation practices. Also says, “That thou art,” an expression of the equal non-difference and difference between the individual self as a part of the whole. Again, too much emphasis on meditation instead of learning and action. Also, we are discrete organisms that act within the universe, not some mystical oneness with everything to be thought about and not thought about. Know thyself is a much better dictum.

10. Great Wilderness - the most detailed and magnificent revelation of the ancient philosopher-seers, which, in its six chapters packed with thought and revelation, provides to the students a practically exhaustive and concentrated teaching on every aspect of life, making it an indispensable guidebook to the student of literature as well as the philosopher, the religious devotee, and the mystical and spiritual seeker engaged in meditation for divine realization. There is no such thing as divine realization. Meditation cannot find it. The lack of scientific knowledge at the time it was written and the premise of mystical divinity make this unworthy of a detailed analysis. It is dismissed as a whole even though some common sense recommendations are contained within.
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I read that now and think that it all comes across as a harsh and disjointed analysis of a scattered and disjointed philosophy. But in my defence, it was ridiculously hard to pin down a tight summary of the Upanishads, and I'm sure I was feeling quite frustrated by the experience. I suspect that like many mystical mounds of mumbo jumbo their slipperiness is what allows them to survive and continue to be explored and closely interpreted by people searching for meaning in this meaningless universe. When Ockham takes his razor to it though, and succinctness and brevity is enforced, very little of it survives the cut.

that he wouldn't run a heat on a Sunday because that would have gone against his beliefs to keep the sabbath day holy (which is Commandment #4 if you haven't spotted them yet). For that belief, he sacrificed his chance at another gold medal (he won a different one). Can you imagine any footballers—especially the ones who love to thank god for every touchdown he bestows upon them—taking such a principled moral stance today? Of course not. Even though the Olympics was an amateur event back then and the footballers are highly (over)paid professionals today.

As I begin my look at the Survival of the Fittest Philosophers, I recognise that it's questionable even to call Moses and his Ten Commandments a work of philosophy. Where's the debate? The dissection? The discussion? The nuance? They're just unquestionable rules shouted down from a mountain top and chiseled into stone as if they were rules for eternity. But since these are some of the earliest written forms of our moral beliefs, they are as good a place as any to start my review of thinking through the ages in light of our current understanding. So, let's get to it. In the first edition of my philosophy, I wrote:
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Moses and the Ten Commandments (14th-12th, 7th, or 6th century BCE are the best guesses for their origin)

Survives
Thou shalt not: 7. Commit adultery; 8. Steal; 9. Bear false witness. These are required in a trusting, cooperative society.

Needs to Adapt
Thou shalt: 5. Honor thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt not: 6. Kill; 10. Covet. Don’t honor people that are wrong. Killing in self-defense or in defense of a just nation is ok because it leads to the long-term survival of the species. There’s nothing wrong with wanting things that others have. Just find your own. Don’t take theirs. And make sure you want the right things.

Gone Extinct
Thou shalt: 1. Have no other gods; 2. Have no graven images or likenesses; 3. Not take the Lord’s name in vain; 4. Remember the Sabbath day. The first four commandments are clearly not concerned with the survival of the species - they are concerned with the survival of the religion. They have no relevance anymore.
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Basically, I have given these Commandments the same level of respect for nuanced thinking that they have given us. It was a crude start to philosophising, so it gets a quick and dirty analysis. Three survive intact. Three are right some of the time. Four have no bearing on our continued survival. This leaves us with about four and a half of the ten Commandments as still surviving…which is actually 1.5 more than the religious Congressman could remember. Do you agree? How many do you abide by? Think about that the next time you hear a religious demagogue shout about the unerring word of god. He's trying to stand on stone that has already crumbled beneath the marching feet of history.