8 In Search of Enlightenment

Science arose from poetry,
when times change
the two can meet again on higher levels
as friends.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Trust through Process

Siddhartha Gautama was born into affluence. His family and surroundings promised a life of luxury and comfort that most would envy. Nevertheless, dissatisfied, he searched for spiritual meaning. He renounced his worldly possessions and left his home to wander as an ascetic monk, searching for the fulfillment that would allow him to declare this incarnation to be his final life. In his journey, he came to realize that a life of deprivation did not bring him the fulfillment that he sought. His musings suggested that a life of service did not bring it either. Finally, he sat beneath the Bodhi Tree, promising not to arise until he reached enlightenment. There, his quest finally ended. He had reached the state of perfect enlightenment and he transcended to the Supreme Buddha. Where, we might ask, did he finally come to realize was the source of enlightenment?

It is all in your head.

“It’s all in your head!” That has been a pejorative phrase for as long as most of us can remember. When we felt our stomach ache on the day of an important examination, perhaps the most positive comment that our mother might make was, “It’s all in your head!” This was merely preface to a stern admonition to “Get dressed and go to school!” However, in fact, our suggestion is not quite of this ilk. Rather, we suggest that the processes of our minds have a dominant effect towards determining our levels of trust. They influence our levels of trust in things to be sure. However, perhaps even more important is the establishment of our level of trust in processes and procedures, including these very same processes of our minds. This obviously suggests that recursion is once again at work. We think, and we think of thinking; right now in fact, we are thinking of thinking of thinking.

Thus far, we have tended to discuss processes in terms of how we convey trust, not how we establish it. However, there are significant areas where processes are at the heart of establishing trust. We started this chapter with a brief, paraphrased story related to the emergence of Buddhism. The words we used are perhaps a bit vague. They are certainly metaphorical, and in some sense allegorical. In an attempt to be a bit clearer, we can expand on them very slightly based on our layman’s perspective of the religion.

Buddhism is a non-theistic religion. Westerners often make the mistake of equating the Buddha with a deity. In reality, the figure represents the highly venerated but mortal person who