12 November 2009

TED and Reddit interview Karen Armstrong

With the launch of the Charter for Compassion, it’s the TED Blog’s pleasure to unveil Karen Armstrong‘s responses to the top 10 questions asked and voted on by the TED and Reddit community. (See all the questions users asked.) She covers the nature of compassion, the history of the conflict in the Middle East, and tough questions such as these:

• Religion seems to cause racism, extremism — why not get rid of it?
• What’s the point of a God that doesn’t intervene?
• Why not discard religion and just teach the Golden Rule?

A Q&A that rewards deep reading. Enjoy!

Capitol62 asks: It seems that the nexus of modern religious conflict is in the Middle East. If that is correct, for your ideas about bringing faiths together with compassion and understanding to be successful you will need a strong commitment from religious leaders there. I was wondering if you’ve made any progress getting the Charter for Compassion together and how it has been received by Muslim leaders in the Middle East.

Actually the Middle East conflict is secular in origin. It began as a conventional political dispute about a land. Zionism was originally a rebellion against religious Judaism and the PLO Charter was essentially secularist. But because the conflict was allowed to fester without a resolution, religion got sucked into the escalating cycle of violence and became part of the problem. Violence and warfare affect everything that we do: they affect our dreams, aspirations, fantasies, relationships — and our religion. Most of the religiously-articulated terrorism that troubles us today arose in regions where an originally secular armed conflict has become chronic. It is patently the case in Afghanistan. The root of the problem is political and unless there is a just, political solution to these problems in the Middle East, no amount of inter-faith understanding will be effective.

But you are right that the Middle East conflict is a “nexus.” It has become a symbolic issue which stands for more than itself in the three monotheisms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. For many Muslims, the plight of the Palestinians has become emblematic of the apparent defeat of their religious, cultural and political aspirations in the modern period; the State of Israel has inspired most Jewish fundamentalist movements — some passionately for the secular state of Israel and others vehemently either against it or adopting a deliberate and defiant neutrality towards it; and the State of Israel also figures prominently in the End Time scenario of the Christian Right in the United States.

All this has certainly muddied the waters, because once a conflict becomes sacralised, issues become absolute and compromise is far ore difficult.

But by no means all Jews, Christians or Muslims adopt these extreme positions. Many are eager, even desperate to achieve a peaceful solution in the Middle East and these are the voices that we need to amplify. On our Council of Conscience, we have a Palestinian peace activist and the Grand Mufti of Egypt, one of the most senior clerics in the Middle East. As I write this, we are reaching out to political and religious leaders in the Gulf States. But there can be no quick fix. Decades of warfare and destruction have made people on all sides suspicious and wary. The political problems remain; they are formidable and until a solution is found that satisfies all parties, there is no hope of either a secular or a religious settlement. The Golden Rule could certainly be a useful yardstick: if we always treated others as we expect to be treated ourselves, many of the heinous actions that are the cause of such suffering to people on both sides of this conflict would be impossible. If we would not like to suffer dispossession and exile, suicide bombing, oppression and terrorism, we should not inflict these on others. But alas, that is not the way politicians think. And when violence has become endemic, some religious people will, not surprisingly, become fearful, angry and, losing hope in the possibility of a conventional political settlement, some will turn to extremism. Charismatic individuals can work wonders. It is a pity that there is no politician or religious leader on either side of this conflict of the moral and spiritual stature of Gandhi, Mandela and Tutu.

renderedit asks: Why did the Buddha teach that the existence of God (that is, whether God exists or not) is irrelevant?

Before we get to the Buddha, I want to describe a spiritual exercise that developed in India in the 10th century BCE, four hundred years before his lifetime and which is a model of authentic religious discourse. Other traditions have developed their own versions of this sacred contest and the principle it embodies underlies the Buddha’s apparent insouciance about the ultimate reality.

It was called the Brahmodya Competition and its aim was to find a verbal formula that defined the Brahman, the ultimate reality that lies beyond the gods and is indefinable because it is the inmost essence of all things, the force that pulls the disparate parts of the universe together. First, the Brahmin priests would go out into the jungle to make a retreat. They fasted and practised breathing exercises that induced a different form of consciousness. This is an important point. You cannot talk about God, Brahman, Nirvana or Dao in the same way as you might discuss a business deal or argue an academic point. You have to put yourself into the receptive frame of mind that is similar to the way we listen to music or poetry.

After their retreat, the priests returned to the compound to begin the competition. The challenger issued his own elliptical and paradoxical description of the Brahman, one that embodied all his learning and insight. Then his opponents had to respond, building on the challenger’s formula and taking the description a step further. But the winner was the priest who reduced everybody to silence — and in that silence the Brahman was present. It was not present in the brilliant verbal conundrums but in the stunning realization of the impotence of speech.

Other traditions have called this transcendence God, Nirvana, or Dao and have also insisted that it lies beyond the reach of words. It is not easy for us to appreciate this reticence. We are used to getting instant information at the click of a mouse and can feel frustrated by the experience of unknowing. We talk, I think, far too glibly about God, asking “him” (ridiculous pronoun!) to bless our nation, save our queen, and support our side in a war or an election, even though our opponents must also be the objects of God’s concern. We have domesticated God’s transcendence. We often learn about God at about the same time as we are learning about Santa Claus; but our ideas about Santa Claus change, mature and become more nuanced, whereas our ideas of God can remain at a rather infantile level.

This experience of numinous unknowing seems to be part of the way we human beings experience. It lay at the heart of the Socratic dialogue, which can be seen as a rational version of the Brahmodya: it did not conclude with one of the participants defeating the arguments of the others but in a profound realization of the profundity of human ignorance. When he contemplated the indeterminate universe of modern physics, Einstein said: “To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself to us as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms — this knowledge, this feeling is at the centre of all true religiousness.” This is the kind of knowing that we derive from poetry — it can take a lifetime for a complex poem to declare its full meaning to us. Music also, a highly rational art intimately related into mathematics, segues naturally into transcendence. Good theology is also an attempt to express the inexpressible. A modern theologian has described theological discourse as speech that segues into silence. At the end of the symphony, when the last notes die away, there is often a pregnant, eloquent beat of silence before the applause begins. Instead of giving us precise information about God, theology — at its best — should hold us in that beat of silence — just as the Brahmodya did.

In the past some of the most influential Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians, such as Maimonides, Aquinas and Ibn Sina, made it clear that it was very difficult to speak about God, because when we confront the ultimate, we are at the end of what words or thoughts can do. They insisted that we really do not know what we mean when we say that God is “good,” “wise” or “intelligent;” they devised spiritual exercises, like the Brahmodya, that made us realize the inadequacy of all God-talk. Some pointed out that we could not even say that God “existed,” because our concept of existence was too limited. Some even preferred to call God “Nothing” because God was not another being.

So, if we cannot know what God is, what is the point of religion? The traditions have found that, even though God is not a metaphysical fact that we can know in the same way as we know the beings of our experience, we can gain some intimation of the divine by means of disciplined spiritual exercises — like the Brahmodya Competition — and a compassionate lifestyle. All the traditions have discovered that the chief obstacle to this insight and enlightenment is egotism — selfishness, greed, envy, self-preoccupation and our engrained tendency to make ourselves the centre of the universe. Yoga, for example, was a systematic dismantling of ego and an attempt to remove the “I” from our thinking. In compassion, which all the traditions say brings us into relation with the transcendence we seek, we learn to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there.

That is why the Buddha always refused to define the ultimate. He had a monk, who was a philosopher manqué. Neglecting his yoga and ethical practice, he kept pestering the Buddha about such questions as the existence of God and the creation of the world. The Buddha told him that he was like a man who had been shot with a poisoned arrow but refused to have any medical treatment until he had discovered the name of his assailant and what village he came from: he would die before he received this perfectly useless information. One could, the Buddha said, spend many pleasant hours discussing these fascinating topics but this would distract a monk from his main objective: “Because, my disciples, they will not help you, they are not useful in the quest for holiness; they do not lead to peace and to the direct knowledge of Nirvana.”

In the oriental traditions, especially in India and China, the emphasis is not on what we are transcending to (God, Nirvana, Brahman, Dao) but on what we must transcend from, tamping out the “unhelpful states of mind” arising from egotism that hold us back from the perception of this transcendent reality that we can glimpse, but never rationally define.

blackstar9000 asks: What one aspect of religion would you say is least understood by the general population, how can it be addressed, and what do you think would be the result if more people understood it?

I think that the Western world — and particularly, perhaps, the Western Christian world — has lost sight of the fact that religion is a practical rather than a notional discipline. It is not a question of thinking or “believing” things but of behaving consistently in a way that changes you at a profound level. This is one of the principal themes of my book The Case for God. Religious knowledge has to be acquired by dedicated practice — like driving, swimming or cooking. You cannot learn dancing or gymnastics by reading a book. You have to devote hours and years of time to practising this skill; you do not necessarily understand how your body achieves these amazing feats, but if you persevere you may learn to move with an unearthly grace and reveal a physical potential that is impossible for an untrained body.

The myths of religion are essentially programmes for action. Many of the most ancient myths are overtly about the gods but are actually about humanity. These stories about gods descending into the underworld and fighting with monsters were not meant to be factual or historical; they were telling you how to enter into the labyrinthine world of the psyche and fight your own demons. Unless a myth is put into practice, it remains as opaque and abstract as a musical score, which is impenetrable to most of us until it is “incarnated” instrumentally. It is only when you apply it practically to your own life — either ritually or ethically — that it reveals its truth, in rather the same way as the instructions of a board game, which seem incomprehensible, complicated and boring until you pick up the dice and begin to play when everything falls into place. Such a myth is not providing us with factual information about the universe but telling you something profoundly true about our humanity, the way our minds and hearts work, and how we can live more richly and intensely, beyond the reach of fear, hatred, and envy.

This is very clear in Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism and Islam, which are all essentially religions of practice and have little or no obligatory dogma. The “five pillars” of Islam, for example, are activities (pilgrimage, almsgiving, fasting) rather than doctrines requiring belief. But it was also true of such Christian doctrines as Trinity (originally a meditative exercise) and Incarnation (a call to lay aside the ego; see Philippians 2:1-11). A myth has been defined as something that — in some sense — happened once but which also happens all the time. It is only when you activate a myth, making it a reality in your own life, that you recognize its truth.

We lost this understanding of religion during the early modern period, when our conception of truth, became more notional, mythos was discredited, and practical knowledge downgraded. At this time, the English word belief changed its meaning: beliven used to mean “love, loyalty, commitment, engagement;” it was related to the German liebe (“beloved”) and the Latin libido (“desire”). Only in the late 17th century did it come to mean: “an intellectual acceptance of a somewhat dubious proposition.” In the New Testament, when Jesus was asking for “faith” (Greek: pistis, “trust, involvement, commitment”) he was not asking for a credulous acceptance of a set of doctrines. He was calling for action, seeking disciples who would give what they had to the poor, live rough, behave compassionately even to social outcasts, and devote their lives to the coming Kingdom when rich and poor, weak and powerful would live together in harmony. When the early Christians recited “creeds” they were not expressing “belief” so much as making this kind of commitment; the Latin credo derives from cor do: “I give my heart.”

By making “belief” in the modern sense so essential to religion, we have distorted our understanding of faith and placed far too much emphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy. Nobody, after all, can have the last word on what we call “God.” We now call religious people “believers” as though accepting certain dogmas was the most important thing that they did. People like the rabbis, the fathers of the church, the Buddha, the sages of the Upanishads and Confucius would have found this very strange, because the teachings of religion make no sense until and unless they are translated into action.

Today we often think that before we start living a religious life we have first to accept the creedal doctrines and that before one can have any comprehension of the loyalty and trust of faith, one must first force one’s mind to accept a host of incomprehensible doctrines. But this is to put the cart before the horse. First you change your behaviour — and only then do you begin to understand the truth that lies behind the dogma.

In his famous prayer, St Anselm, the 11th century archbishop of Canterbury, says: credo ut intelligam, which is usually translated: “I believe in order that I may understand.” As a child, I always thought this meant that first I had to force my mind to “believe” the articles of the creed and then, as a reward, God would give me understanding. But Anselm’s words are more accurately translated: “I involve/commit myself in order that I may understand.” It is only when you involve yourself in the ritual and ethical practices of religion that you achieve understanding. That is why Anselm goes on to say: “And unless I so involve myself, I will not understand.”

The person who asked me this question also asked a series of questions about the Golden Rule (“Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you” or “Always treat all others as you would wish to be treated yourself”). Why the emphasis on the Golden Rule? Why is it universal? Does it tell us anything substantial about religion, since it is also fundamental to secular ideologies? Because religion is essentially a practical activity, religious people are very pragmatic. They do not usually adopt an ideology because it sounds good but because it has been found to work. When people have practised the Golden Rule “all day and every day” as Confucius (the first person to formulate it in the sixth century BCE) prescribed, you find that you lay aside the ego, because the Golden Rule requires you to overcome selfishness and put yourself, consistently, kindly, and intelligently, all day and every day, in somebody else’s shoes.

People have discovered that if they practice the Golden Rule faithfully, it slowly, incrementally, changes them. They achieve what the Greeks called ekstasis, which is not an exotic trance but a disciplined, habitual “stepping outside” of the prism of selfishness. This practice is fundamental to the enlightenment that we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or Dao. As a dancer reveals the full potential of the human body, people find that living beyond the confines of self helps them to cultivate new capacities of mind and heart; they discover a transcendent peace within themselves, which enables them to live serenely and creatively in the midst of the suffering that is an ineradicable part of the human condition. The Golden Rule is the basis of religion and morality because this is the way our humanity works; this tells us something profoundly true about the human condition.

But it is no use either “believing” or “dis-believing” in the efficacy of the Golden Rule. You only discover its truth and effectiveness if you put it into practice “all day and every day.”

Read the rest of Karen Armstrong’s answers, after the jump >>
(more…)

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12 November 2009

Video: Australians on Compassion

Voices from all cultures and religions are coming together to affirm The Charter for Compassion. Along with the celebrations and events that will be taking place around the globe to mark this momentous occasion, we sought to understand what compassion meant to some inspiring Australians.

In order of appearance, they are: Adriano Zumbo, Cathie McGinn, Dr Stephen Saunders, Neil Perry, Melissa Leong, Barry Saunders, Mitzi Macintosh, Mark Pollard, Julie Posetti, Venerable Sujato Bhikkhu, Gavin Heaton, Reverend Raymond Minniecon, Bronwen Clune, Reverend Bill Crews, Rabbi Mendel Castell, Graham Long and Tim Burrowes.

Learn more and affirm the Charter now at charterforcompassion.org.

Australians on Compassion from TED Prize on Vimeo.

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12 November 2009

More quotes from the Charter for Compassion launch

From religious scholar Karen Anderson, whose 2008 TED Prize wish formed the seed of the Charter for Compassion:

“The Golden Rule requires you, in a disciplined way, to discover what gives you pain and refuse to do that to others.”

“At a time when religions are seen at loggerheads, the Charter is a cooperative exercise.”

“The launch is the beginning of a voyage. We have a lot of work to do – environment, financial crisis, war.”

“The Charter is a call to action, and now we’ve got to work.”

From Chris Anderson, curator of TED:

“The wish that Karen came up with took our breath away.”

“No one here thinks this will make the world’s problems go away. We’re planting a seed we hope will grow.”

“This is not a soft, sappy, kumbaya moment. This is the culmination of a dream to nudge the world to a better place.”

Help spread the message of compassion by posting the Charter for Compassion widget on your blog or website. Share it with this short URL: http://bit.ly/CharterWidget

Photo: Hanging the Charter for Compassion plaque at the Immaculate Conception Chapel, Culion, Palawan, Philippines

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12 November 2009

Powerful quotes from the Charter for Compassion launch

Pulled from Twitter coverage of the live Charter event:

“Compassion is a dangerous dream beacause it rocks the foundations of old interests and gives us new ground to stand on.” Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell

“In this room, we have words that make a difference between death and life. Words can bring life and words can kill.” – Rev. Peter Storey

“This is the most collaborative undertaking of religious communities in history.” – Rabbi David Saperstein

“We often talk about one corner of the world as the holy land. The whole world is the holy land.” – Rev. Peter Storey

“The Charter is a hit song. Melody, rhythm, groove.” -Pakistani musician Salman Ahmad #compassion [let's dance]

“This is the world’s now. We’re giving it away. What will you do to spread compassion?” Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell

Photo: The Charter for Compassion plaque at the Ghandiji Ashram, Penang, Malaysia.

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12 November 2009

Charter around the world: Sydney, Australia

Outside the Sydney Opera House, an ecumenical group holds the Yves Béhar-designed plaque for the Charter for Compassion.

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12 November 2009

Charter for Compassion launches!

This morning at 10am, Karen Armstrong unveiled the powerful text of the Charter for Compassion — the culmination of her 2008 TED Prize wish.

Read and affirm the text of the Charter for Compassion >>

The Charter for Compassion asks that people of all religions and moral codes to recognize the core value we share — that we wish to act toward others as we’d like them to act toward us. This bedrock value is the foundation for a greater understanding.

Look for photos from today’s announcement and from events around the world on the TED Blog throughout the day. And follow @TheCharter on Twitter for ongoing news (look for the hashtag #Compassion).

Learn more about the Charter for Compassion — and find or start an event to share and celebrate it!

Become a Fan of the Charter for Compassion on Facebook >>

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11 November 2009

Google makes World Bank data visible

Stats guru Hans Rosling writes to say the popular search engine, Google, is making 17 of the World Bank’s World Development Indicators available to search queries:

Subject: TED helps liberate data!
Here is very good news! As of today, the first hole to freedom exists in the data vault of the World Bank — and the data is now passing through Google search and reaching the world with added value in the form of Google Public Data graphics!

This is the first step toward the reality of the vision [TED] helped me launch through my TED2006 talk! Big change takes time … but this will change the world!

Chung Wu, on the official Google Blog, writes: “We hope this new data and our new embedding feature will help facilitate quick and easy access to public statistics. There are still many other data sets and sources out there, and we’re excited about the possibilities for the future.”

Watch Hans Rosling’s talk from TED@State >>

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11 November 2009

TEDIndia post-conference thoughts from attendees

It’s been four days since TEDIndia ended, and the attendees have been making their way home to cities across India and around the world. Thanks to all who’ve spent some of the travel time writing down their thoughts on this extraordinary past week.

TED Fellow Dina Mehta rounded up her TEDIndia in tweets — a rich in-the-moment experience. A sample from Day 2 (read up from the bottom):

RT @pkgulati: Shaffi at @tedindia – we are insane people, and an insane person does not know what’s an impossible task
New idea. How to fight the demand for a bribe? Call in the Bribe Busters! Dial …… Nice :) :) Shaffi Mather.
Dr Asher Hassan. Main Bhi Pakistani Hoon. (I too am Pakistan). Sharing stories of normal people thru photos.
RT @bcampbelljr: Idea from TEDIndia – write your obituary. If you don’t like the way it reads, change your life – now.
Quite inspirational Q- one key idea to spread ? Shukla Bose A- educate the teachers

The blog Our Woman in Havana covered every day of TEDIndia in detail; in the latest post, the writer takes a step back to evaluate what just happened. It’s a tour de force, ending in a lovely image:

If I could do TED India all over again, I would have brought the Gods of all the major religions on stage and asked them how they viewed India. Then I would have asked the Chief Beliefs Officer to create a new politics where they could sing, dance, work and pray together.

Anneke Jong kept a detailed diary of each day of the conference, with great snapshots, on Aniblog. Start with her landing in Bangalore and work upward. From her Session 4 report:

anil gupta, founder of the honey bee network shared some of the locally grown innovations they’re seeing in india. ventures included a man who attached a small grain grinder to his bicycle so he can grind small batches of grain for poor people (mills won’t grind small quantities); a bicycle-mounted washing machine that travels from village to village; <$1 non-stick hot plate made of clay ... favorite quote: "the minds on the margin are not marginal minds."

TED Fellow Amit Varna offers his own take on TEDIndia — both what worked for him and what didn’t. In the end, Varna writes:

The real draw of TED is the intellectual firepower around you, and the amazing people you get to meet. … Many of my fellow TED Fellows are engaged in work that actually changes the lives of thousands of people (as opposed to writing a measly novel), and it was humbling to be in their company. I was also delighted to connect with the Pakistanis at the conference, who made it a richer event just by their presence.

Mark Emanuelson shares a concept he learned more about at TEDIndia: jugaad:

So what is the key to success in India? How does a country full of big constraints like poverty and creaking infrastructure still manage to grow so fast? The answer is what some call “Jugaad,” an Indian term meaning an arrangement or workaround …

In a nice long post, Russell Smith recaps his feelings during and after TEDIndia — “a life-changing experience” — and details many of his favorite speakers, including C.K. Prahalad:

C.K. Prahalad identifies the world’s poor (the “bottom of the pyramid”) as a mostly untapped market for companies, worth up to $13 trillion a year in revenues. In his words, “the real source of market promise is not the wealthy few in the developing world, or even the emerging middle-income consumers. It is the billions of aspiring poor who are joining the market economy for the first time.” In his TED talk, Dr. Prahalad warned against “learning disabilities” on the part of companies, leading to mistakes, such as mistaking current profits for leadership, and unwillingness to face up to capability gaps. He seems to be saying that the answer lies in democratizing technology, communication, and learning, such that everybody from the top to the bottom will know what’s going on.

More recaps and roundups on their way. If you’ve written a roundup, taken notes or photos, email contact@ted.com with the subject line NOTES.

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11 November 2009

Photographing the landscape of oil: Edward Burtynsky on TED.com

In stunning large-format photographs, Edward Burtynsky follows the path of oil through modern society, from wellhead to pipeline to car engine — and then beyond to the projected peak-oil endgame. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2009, July 2009, Oxford, UK. Duration: 3:40)

Watch Edward Burtynsky’s talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 500+ TEDTalks.

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10 November 2009

The science behind a climate headline: Rachel Pike on TED.com

In 4 minutes, atmospheric chemist Rachel Pike provides a glimpse of the massive scientific effort behind the bold headlines on climate change, with her team — one of thousands who contributed — taking a risky flight over the rainforest in pursuit of data on a key molecule. (Recorded at TEDGlobal University 2009, July 2009, Oxford, UK. Duration: 4:14)

Twitter URL: http://on.ted.com/6L

Watch Rachel Pike’s talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 500+ TEDTalks.

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