The New Hedonism

Like anyone else, I’ve spent a lot of time chasing pleasure. Whether it was food or other substances, I’ve done my share. And then some. And like anyone else, it’s often bitten me in the ass. The very thing I thought would do me good turned around and did me bad. Turns out, managing pleasure is not so easy.

It feels good to feel good. Naturally, we want more of it. Even a single celled organism swims toward the food and away from the pain. Freud called this universal dynamic the “pleasure principle.” Bentham and Mill called it the “principle of utility” and built an entire ethical system around it known as utilitarianism. And two ancient Greek philosophers, Aristippus and Epicurus, asserted that pleasure was the highest good, and that we were morally obligated to pursue it. The Greek word for pleasure is “hedone.” Their philosophy is called hedonism.

            Hedonism asserts that pleasure not only feels good, it is good. But Aristippus and Epicurus disagreed on the exact nature of pleasure. For Aristippus, all pleasures were equal, and no meaningful distinctions could be made between higher and lower pleasures. When you and I use the word “hedonism,” this is the version of hedonism we usually mean – pleasure for pleasure’s sake, the more the better, the sooner the better, and consequences be damned.

For Epicurus, on the other hand, a more refined definition of pleasure comes into view. In Epicureanism, an important distinction is made between higher pleasures and lower pleasures. Lower pleasures engage the senses. Higher pleasures engage the mind and the soul. For Aristippus the pleasure derived from scratching a mosquito bite is morally equivalent to the pleasure derived from reading literature or writing music. Epicurus disagrees. For him, higher pleasures are of a much higher quality than lower pleasures, and are therefore preferable, even if in lesser amount or mixed with pain. Aristippus focuses on quantity, Epicurus on quality. Quantity or quality – what matters most to you?

            For Epicurus and his followers (known as Epicureans), the best life was a simple life of friendship, healthy living, and peace of mind. A good night’s sleep, a clear-headed morning, lucid thoughts, a keen sense of presence, and rich conversation offer deeper pleasure than the wildest evening of excess and revelry. Debauchery and conspicuous consumption, the hallmark of Aristippus’s form of hedonism, have no place in the Epicurean worldview for one simple reason – they do not in fact lead to more pleasure, but less. Sickness, dissipation, strained relationships, and that empty feeling that you’re wasting your life – these hardly qualify as “pleasure” let alone happiness. The well-lived life, Epicurus argued, was a source of deep satisfaction. In simple terms, less is more – restraint of appetite leads to a profusion of happiness. The mechanics of pleasure are more subtle and nuanced than we first imagined.

            Another important consideration in pleasure management is the element of time. How good are you at trading small, short-term pleasure for larger long-term pleasures? The utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham called this consideration propinquity – nearness in time. For example, spending your entire paycheck as soon as you get it on fleeting entertainment vs. setting aside 10% of it for larger, more significant purchases in the future, like your next car or a trip to Paris. Either way it’s self-centered hedonism, yet clearly, one is more effective at maximizing pleasure than the other. If you’re really serious about pleasure, you learn how to wait.

            There’s a reason I quit drinking and drugging. There’s a reason I go to bed early and get up early. There’s a reason I read difficult books. There’s a reason I regularly exercise, meditate, and do yoga. There’s a reason I keep my desk neat and clean. There’s a reason I eat healthy, delicious, fresh, and wholesome food in moderate portions. There’s a reason I push myself to do challenging things that stretch me out of my comfort zone. The reason is pleasure. I do all of these things because they greatly increase my happiness. This is the New Hedonism.

            What used to be fun is no longer fun for me. The calculations have deepened and shifted. It’s still all about maximizing pleasure, but my definition of pleasure has changed. What used to be boring and dull is now exciting and bright. A walk through the neighborhood is a thrill. Waking up healthy and alive is a magnificent gift. Being of service is deeply gratifying. The simple grace of living in this miraculous mind-body, in relationship with all of these other innumerable mind-bodies around me, on such a beautiful planet, in this magnificent cosmos, is an inexhaustible stream of joy. By letting go, one by one, of the practices, thought patterns, and habits that no longer served my highest good, I grew simpler and simpler until the essential happiness dormant within each of us began to arise. It’s a process, not a destination. I don’t think I’ll ever be done growing and letting go. But with the loving support of the other awakening people around me, everyday becomes an opportunity to see just how much deeper, how much truer, how much more pleasurable life can become.

            What will the New Hedonism mean for you? What shape will it take?

            What practices, thought patterns, and habits no longer serve your highest good?

            What might a wiser calculation of short term vs. long term pleasure yield?

            What will a clear headed assessment of every source of so-called pleasure show? In the accounting of our own sacred wellness, only the most courageous self-examination will do.

            Without moralizing, without self-loathing, and without reference to any authorities other than your own instinctive good sense, what would careful and loving introspection reveal?

            Let pragmatism be your guide. If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn’t work, let it go. One by one examine every behavior, every habit, every practice, and every thought-pattern and apply this simple test – does this behavior, habit, practice, or thought-pattern enhance my deep and overall happiness, or does it diminish it? Only you know. And again, without even the slightest appeal to religious authorities, cultural norms, or the opinions of others, ask yourself one simple question – is this enhancing my life or hampering it? Find a healthy balance between willingness to take direction and fierce independence.

            As Socrates reminded us, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Without this sort of hard-headed scrutiny, our tendency is to just keep going on and on in the same stultifying patterns. Like sleep-walkers, we shuffle along chasing the same prizes that again and again have led to little more than disappointment and disillusionment. You deserve better. Your soul is asking for more. It’s time to move out of the darkness and into the light.

            As this year comes to a close, re-examine your relationship with pleasure. We love pleasure, and rightly so. All organisms do. Pleasure is good. Pleasure is one of the greatest joys of life. But what kind of pleasure? Only wisdom knows.

The Love of Money

         “Money is the root of all evil,” he said, “it’s in the Bible.” I didn’t respond. People don’t like being corrected. Sometimes it’s best just to smile and move on.  
          Actually, I thought to myself, the line is “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil…” (1 Timothy 1:6) It may seem like a small difference, but it matters.  
          Money isn’t the problem – it’s our rapacious craving born from the consciousness of scarcity that causes all of the destruction. “People who want to get rich,” Paul writes, “fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction… Some people, eager for money, have wandered…and pierced themselves with many griefs.”  
          What Paul’s lamenting is not money, but the spiritual poverty that goads us into the mistaken belief that our happiness lies in the meaningless acquisition of things. To fall into the love of money is to be pierced with many griefs. We must instead love the work, without attachment to the results.
           Some voices in traditional Christianity have used these passages to support a dualistic philosophy that denigrates the material world as a treacherous lair of temptation, a trap our godly souls must strive to avoid. This arguably Medieval, life-denying, and otherworldly form of Christianity views the world of embodied forms as a fallen realm to be transcended. But that isn’t the only way to see it.
          Other voices within the Christian family align more closely with their sister faiths Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism in their affirmation of the fundamental goodness of the material world.
          In Hinduism, ultimate reality is known as Brahman, the sacred formless ground of being out of which all forms emerge and to which all forms return. In this non-dualistic view, the world of forms is a sacred reflection of divinity, a realm of infinite value and beauty. Even the creativity and productivity pouring through us is understood as yet another aspect of the one divine unfolding. Our longing to expand, whether spiritually, professionally, or materially, is not a sign of vice or self-obsession – it is simply Brahman giving birth to itself through us. Wanting a more beautiful home isn’t always covetousness – sometimes it’s just growth. Who are we not to create more, have more, and be more – not in the pursuit of self-aggrandizement, but in the spirit of playful enjoyment?
          You’ve also heard it said that money can’t buy happiness. You know who talks like that? People who have money. It’s difficult to be happy if you have no shelter, you don’t feel safe, or you have no access to adequate healthcare. Poverty exerts terrible stress on the poor, akin to the traumatic stress experienced by combat veterans. Not knowing where your next meal is coming from, or worrying about whether or not the thin walls of your section 8 apartment can keep out stray bullets from drive by shootings make happiness a distant dream.
          A raft of recent studies show that money does indeed buy happiness, up to a point. Happiness increases as income increases, up to about $75,000 a year. As income rises above $75,000, the happiness correlation drops off. And by the time you get to $250,000 a year, the correlation disappears. If you’re well into the six figures, money cannot buy more happiness. But below that it can, and it does.
          If all is one, then our participation in the material world is a sacred experience. Doing the work we have been given to do, applying our God-given talents, sensibilities, and initiative to create products, services, and solutions for the needs of the world is everyone’s sacred purpose. When we offer up our best in the consciousness of service, people give us money for it. As we work in our given professions for a world that works for everyone, we honor ourselves, our creator, and each other. Earning money for honest work is a deeply satisfying, honorable pleasure. Using that money to provide for one’s family, enrich one’s experiences, enhance one’s safety, security, and enjoyment, cannot be evil. 

[This piece was originally published in my column "A to Zen" in the July/August 2017 issue of Unity Magazine, and is reproduced here with permission.]

The Five Questions

There is nothing as powerful as a question. Answers close everything down. Questions open everything up.

In our efforts to improve our lives, our careers, our relationships, and our creative output it’s important to spend some quality time with a handful of good questions.

What really matters to me?

There are so many conflicting demands made on our attention. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Before you know it, the day is gone. And what do you have to show for it? Every moment requires a decision in the face of an infinite array of possibilities. The moments turn to hours, the hours turn to days, and before you know it, another year is gone. And you never know how many of those you have left. The little things add up and become the whole. Our life is the sum of our decisions. “How we spend our days,” wrote Annie Dillard, “is, of course, how we spend our lives.” It’s vitally important that we by any means necessary clarify our values and order our priorities. There is no time to waste time. Make room for what really matters. As Stephen Covey says, put first things first. Whatever doesn’t fit gets dropped. Learn how to be o.k. with this.

A good way to re-order your priorities is by asking this next question.

Why am I doing this?

We do things for a lot of different reasons, some valid, some empty. Start being more careful about what you say yes to. Honestly assess the quality and value of the experiences you sign up for. Are you a thoughtful steward of your time, talent and treasure? What are you getting out of this? A tangible benefit? The joy of contributing to a worthy cause? Do these actions help cement a relationship that is important to me? Or am I doing this just to curry favor and feed my ego? There are no hard and fast rules here. Again, the question is so much more important, so much more vitally alive than the answer. When we live in the why, we stay open to the flashes of intuition and insight that guide us through the challenging terrain of motive.

What do we owe each other?

We do not live alone, no matter how isolated we feel. Our lives are inexorably bound up in the lives of everyone and everything else. We breathe the same air, share the same space and support each other in innumerable ways. Our decision making needs to begin in the realization of our complete and utter interdependency. From that foundation it becomes clear that our society comes with a contract – the moral obligation to take responsibility for co-creating a world that works for everyone. That being said, we cannot offer ourselves up as martyrs on the altars of other people’s self-absorption. Finding the line between altruism and self-love is the work of every thinking man and woman. Compassionate action must be our guiding principle, including compassion for ourselves – why should we be excluded? Again, there are no hard and fast rules, just a formless, living awareness of our interdependency and a simultaneous acknowledgment of our personal liberty and responsibility. We cannot save everyone we meet from their own bad choices. But we also know that our fates are intertwined, and a blind eye and closed fist is a miserable response that shuts us off from our own happiness.

What is happiness?

When you keep it simple, happiness is simply feeling comfortable in your own skin. It’s a word we use to describe a general sense of well-being born of a thousand mothers – external circumstances, biology, the actions of others and our own free-will decision to choose happiness in spite of all those things.  Without putting too fine a point on it, we all know what happiness is, yet we must keep this question open and alive if we are to move through the minefield of the myriad conflicting demands placed on us.  We have to develop a subtle understanding of long-term self-interest. The willingness to sacrifice momentary, fleeting pleasures for long-term well-being is the watermark of maturity. Discipline, mastery and self-restraint create the conditions in which our deepest and most authentic joy can thrive. For Aristotle, happiness is the result of risk-taking, hard work, and the courageous cultivation of our innate potential. Having the will power to nurture our own excellence and avoid the dissipation of trivial pursuits is an essential component of the well-lived life. And yet we must avoid thinking of happiness as a distant goal, an endpoint achievable only after we arrange all of the outer elements of our lives in accord with our whimsical demands. Nothing outside of us makes us happy. Happiness is a decision. It is quality of being, not a passive response to favorable stimuli.  Pay attention to the subtle, fluid nature of your own emotional weather systems. Know that while there are always going to be ups and downs, it is possible to move in the general direction of happiness. One of the best ways to do that is to ask yourself this next question.

What am I?

Not Who am I? but What am I? Who am I? simply elicits a long list of labels and social definitions – man, woman, child, son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, college student, job description, nationality, introvert, extrovert, political affiliation, ad infinitum. When the list is done, you’re still no closer to the real question. What’s beneath all of those masks? Don’t let the brevity or the childlike simplicity of the question fool you. This is a tough one. I know this sounds strange, but don’t let the mind rush to an answer – it will gladly offer up all of the usual suspects: a soul, a body, a spirit, a mass of protoplasm. The mind is incapable of answering this question – how could it?  The mind is a function of the self, not its source. Asking the mind to define the mind is like asking your eyes to see your eyes. Confused? That’s the point. The mind is out of its depth here. Like a Zen koan, the question Who am I? nudges us through the veil that divides our surface consciousness from the depths of our inner witness, a profound and wordless knowing that hums with the energy of Being itself.  How can a wave know that it is the entirety of the sea while it is utterly identified with the wave-state?

Again, as much as we long to run into the arms of every awaiting answer, it is far more powerful to simply remain in the uncertainty created by the imposition of the question itself. As magnets attract iron, questions attract insight.  Answers, on the other hand, attract argument.

 Socrates lived his life, and ultimately gave his life, in the pursuit of self-knowledge. The dialogues of Plato that tell his story are masterful testimonies to the power of inquiry. Socrates wasn’t interested in cataloging the qualities of things; it was their essence he was after – beauty, truth, justice, and the good. And most importantly, what are we in the face of this eternal mystery?

Learn to trust the authority of your own inner voice. There is wisdom in the field of awareness, available to anyone willing to become silent enough to hear it. Take the time to listen. If you aren’t already, begin journaling. Take these questions into your prayer and meditation. In one way or another, make it a daily practice to spend time in the contemplation of the five questions.

The Question of Happiness

[A version of this article originally appeared in the May/June 2013 edition of Unity Magazine and is reprinted here with permission.]

Self-Actualization, Spiritual Enlightenment and Maslow’s

Hierarchy of Needs 

Sixty years ago, Abraham Maslow broke ground in the field of psychology when his “Hierarchy of Needs” suggested that there was a stepwise approach to realizing well-being. But does it conflict with the spiritual perspective that the “kingdom of heaven” is already within us?

“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news.  The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be!  How much you can love!  What you can accomplish!  And what your potential is! 

~ Anne Frank

“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential – these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.”

 ~ Confucius

Psychologist Abraham Maslow wanted to know what happiness was.  Why do some people have it and others don’t? 

For Maslow, happiness is not a simple response to a favorable arrangement of external conditions.  Instead, it is innate and emerges as a by-product of a fully realized life.  Like Aristotle and Confucius before him, Maslow argued that our latent happiness occurs only when we cultivate and manifest our highest potential.  He wrapped his findings into a pyramid-shaped package known as Maslow’s hierarchy. 

            Maslow’s central claim is that human beings have five fundamental sets of needs stacked into a hierarchy.  We all begin at the bottom and work our way up – each tier of needs taking its turn in dominating our thoughts.  Many spiritual traditions teach that we become what we think about – that our thoughts construct our lives.  It’s only natural then that until each set of needs is satisfied, it’s difficult or impossible to think about anything else.  The needs of our current tier eclipse all other concerns.  Only when a set of needs is met does our attention turn to the next stage of development.   

At the base of the pyramid are the physiological needs required for survival – air, water, food, sex and sleep.  These needs form the foundation of the hierarchy. 

When these needs are met, the second stage of needs arise.  Here the focus shifts to security – keeping ourselves and our families safe. 

            With the first two sets of needs satisfied, a longing for deep and meaningful relationships emerges becoming the focus of our lives.  Our thoughts turn to love and intimacy as we cultivate authentic relationships with our friends, life partners and families. 

            The fourth need is healthy self-esteem.  Here we long to thrive in the world of achievement and accomplishment.  Our self confidence expands as our skills increase.  Proficiency blossoms into mastery.  We enjoy the honor and recognition of our peers taking our rightful place in a mutually supportive community. 

With the first four needs satisfied, the fifth and final need arises, the need for self-actualization.  Despite the high quality of our lives there is unfinished business.  Our deepest and most individually specific potentialities remain unrealized.  Here we heed the call to give expression to our innate excellence, performing the work that is uniquely ours to do.  We become self-authorizing, no longer beholden to the crowd for approval or praise.  We freely pursue the good and become autonomous moral agents, guided by deeply held principles, not group norms or the dictates of traditional authority.  We, in a word, become happy.  For Maslow, self-actualization is our highest purpose, the culmination of all the earlier stages of our development. 

Every human being carries within them this deep need for self-actualization.  Until this need is met, we will always feel vaguely restless, dissatisfied and incomplete.   As the Afghani saying goes, “What a shame, to die like a pomegranate with all of one’s seeds still locked up inside.” 

            By placing these needs in a hierarchy, Maslow makes physiological and social well-being a necessary precondition for self-actualization.  But is that true?  Might it be possible to achieve self-actualization while basic survival, security or love needs remain unsatisfied? 

             If, as many spiritual traditions claim, the kingdom of heaven is within us, what difference does it make if we’re rich or poor, loved or lonely, skillful or incompetent?  Are we not to seek first the kingdom and all else will be given to us?  Do we not find many examples of people in poverty or other hardships who nevertheless possess a remarkable measure of spiritual maturity?  If we put self-realization first, would that not re-order and re-cast all of our other so-called needs?

Two competing portraits emerge.  First, it seems reasonable to assert, with Maslow, that basic survival comes before the cultivation of our higher sensibilities.  If you have no air to breath or water to drink, it’s doubtful that spiritual growth would be your first order of business.  And until fundamental safety and security are assured, the pursuit of self-actualization seems a luxury we can ill afford.

Yet there are times when the indomitable human spirit shines brightest in times of crisis.  In the brutality of the Nazi concentration camps, Victor Frankl noted that the prisoners who chose to find meaning did.  Through sheer will power human beings can transcend the inhumanity of their conditions.

Still, it seems cavalier to claim from the safety and comfort of our middle class existence that anyone, anywhere, no matter the conditions of their lives, can realize self-actualization.  Sold into a brothel at the age of nine, becoming a heroin addict at the age of twelve and contracting AIDS at fourteen – it’s absurdly cruel to suggest that none of this impedes the fulfillment of a young girl’s potential.

In the abstract we may argue that material things don’t matter – a position especially easy to take when we already possess them.  But few would argue that the basic requirements of life are inconsequential to human happiness.  Seeds may be storehouses of great potential, but without fertile soil and other external conditions conducive to cultivation, can fruition occur?  And herein lays the confusion.  By self-actualization Maslow did not mean spiritual enlightenment or awakening – he meant the realization of one’s own specific potential.  One cannot become a masterful concert pianist without access to a piano.  One cannot become a writer of profoundly important world literature if one has not had the privilege of an education.  And neither of those things is possible in a war-torn ghetto where families are ripped apart and violent death dogs your every step.

So I guess it just depends on what you mean by happiness.  For Maslow happiness is a by-product of self-actualization and self-actualization is not possible without certain specific environmental and psychological preconditions.  For others happiness is defined as a spiritual condition unmoored from the external world. 

As in the following Zen story, our spiritual traditions tend to emphasize this second perspective.

  Master Ryokan lived alone in a tiny hut.  One night while he was away a thief snuck into the hut only to discover that there was nothing in it worth stealing.  Ryokan returned home and caught the thief warming his hands by the fire.

            “You have come such a long way to visit me,” said Ryokan, “and you should not return empty handed.  Here, please take my clothes as a gift.”

            The thief looked bewildered, took the clothes and slunk away.

            Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. 

            “Poor fellow,” he mused, “I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”

            In this Buddhist portrait of enlightened consciousness we certainly recognize a highly evolved being.  As in the teachings of Jesus, Ryokan’s residency in the kingdom of heaven is not dependent on the satiation of lower order needs.   Still, at its core, Buddhist spirituality seeks sublimation into oneness, not the actualization of one’s individual uniqueness.  We can imagine Ryokan enlightened, but we cannot imagine him fulfilled in the western sense.  Self-actualization requires a self.  With the eradication of the ego, there is no one left to fulfill.

            It turns out that self-actualization and spiritual enlightenment are two different goals with distinct pathways and methodologies.  Self-actualization requires the realization of our uniquely individual potentialities while spiritual enlightenment transcends individuality and draws us into a unitive state with the divine. 

            If by happiness we mean our own individual happiness, then Maslow offers a compelling path.  If by happiness we mean transcendence of the separate self and immersion into the One, then the world and its woes offer little resistance – in fact our hardships might even be a catalyst hastening our spiritual ascendency.   

Afterword: The Human Potential Movement

Maslow’s hierarchy is best understood in the context of the human potential movement, a label given to the work of a disparate group of twentieth century psychologists, writers and teachers like Aldous Huxley, Carl Rogers, Victor Frankl, Alan Watts, Michael Murphy, Werner Erhard, Jean Houston and Anthony Robbins, among others. 

In the seventies Erhard was best known as the founder of EST, (Erhard Seminars Training), an influential educational platform with ideological links to Scientology that now goes by the name Landmark Education. 

Murphy founded the Esalen Institute, a Big Sur bastion of the consciousness cognoscenti, hosting seminars by the likes of Joseph Campbell, Carlos Castaneda and Deepak Chopra.  Another frequent presence at Esalen was Abraham Maslow. 

Like other leaders of the human potential movement, Erhard and Murphy both worked hard to synthesize the insights of eastern spirituality and western psychology into a new understanding of humanity’s capacity to steer its own way out of ignorance and toward liberation.  Given the very different portraits of human nature in eastern and western philosophy, such a synthesis may not be possible.  In the west we are forever separate entities in relationship with a larger reality.  In the east we are that larger reality and our perceived individuality is one of the many illusions to be overcome. 

Still, what aligns Maslow with these other luminaries is their assertion that human beings, both collectively and individually, possess a largely untapped ability to lift themselves out of ignorance and claim their birthright as fully realized beings.  This portrait of conscious evolution – from the pursuit of basic needs to self-actualization – puts Maslow’s hierarchy front and center in the human potential movement.