 For countries undergoing political turmoil, we can't help but wonder when this will happen to us.One of the factors which we constantly see being played out on the screens are the constant streams of protesters and these included holy people such as monks and nuns. Some of the countries which comes to mind includes, Myanmar, Korea and to some extent, all over the world during the recent 2008 Beijing Olympics torch relay where exiled Tibetans and sympathizers took to the streets.If we were to do a social experiment, as Ven K Sri Dhammananda once suggested, that if any country were to declare a state of anarchy for just 24 hours, that country, where chaos would reign, would never be able to revert back to a lawful state. I would say, not without armed intervention. Apparently, in most people mind, the stick is still mightier than the carrot.In such a scenario, religion would take a back seat as the jaws of greed and hatred bares it fangs. People would take the law into their own hands without a judiciary system. Old scores are settled the way of the wild, wild west. History has shown us that.This article, by John Tierney, explores the possibility of religion playing a prominent role in inculcating self-control. From the Buddhist point of view, self control involves the basic training of adhering to the 5 precepts of not killing; not stealing; not committing sexual misconduct; not engaging in false speech; not taking any intoxicating drugs or alcohol.Without having to take into consideration any form of meditation practices such as Tong Len, Vipassana etc, we would notice that these 5 precepts would make a perfect citizen for any country.As mentioned in the article, religious people are self-controlled not simply because they fear God's wrath, but because they have absorbed the ideals of their religion into their own system of values, and have thereby given their personal goals an aura of sacredness. Each religions system, whether Christian, Muslim, Toaist or Buddhist has such sacred values which treasures the sanctity of human existence and accompanying basic rights. As for Buddhist, as long as they hold the Precepts as sacred, any person who undertakes and never transgress, will never commit a crime.The following article first appeared in the New York Times and was published in the Straits Times on Saturday, January 3, 2009.Pray, lead us not into temptationBY JOHN TIERNEYIf I'm serious about keeping my New Year resolutions in 2009, should I add another one? Should the to-do list include, "Start going to church"?This is an awkward question for a heathen to contemplate, but I felt obliged to raise it with Dr Michael McCullough after reading his report in the upcoming issue of the Psychological Bulletin. He and a fellow psychologist at the University of Miami, Dr Brian Willoughby, have reviewed eight decades of research and concluded that religious belief and piety promote self-control.This sounded to me uncomfortably similar to the conclusion of the nuns who taught me in grade school, but Dr McCullough has no evangelical motives. He confesses to not being much of a devotee himself. "When it comes to religion," he said, "professionally, I'm a fan, but personally, I don't get down on the field much."His professional interest arose from a desire to understand why religion evolved and why it seems to help so many people. Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that devoutly religious people tend to do better in school, live longer, have more satisfying marriages and be generally happier.These results have been ascribed to the rules imposed on believers and to the social support they receive from fellow worshippers, but these external factors didn't account for all the benefits. In the new paper, the Miami psychologists surveyed the literature to test the proposition that religion gives people internal strength."We simply asked if there was good evidence that people who are more religious have more self-control," said Dr McCullough. "For a long time it wasn't cool for social scientists to study religion, but some researchers were quietly chugging along for decades. When you add it all up, it turns out there are remarkably consistent findings that religiosity correlates with higher self-control."As early as the 1920s, researchers found that students who spent more time in Sunday school did better at laboratory tests measuring their self-discipline. Subsequent studies showed that religiously devout children were rated relatively low in impulsiveness by both parents and teachers, and that religiosity repeatedly correlated with higher self-control among adults. Devout people were found to be more likely than others to wear seat belts, go to dentist and take vitamins.But which came first, the religious devotion or the self-control? It takes self-discipline to sit through Sunday school or services at a temple or mosque, so people who start out with low self-control are presumably less likely to keep attending. But even after taking that self-selection bias into account, Dr McCullough said there is still reason to believe that religion has a strong influence."Brain-scan studies have shown that when people pray or meditate, there's a lot of activity in two parts of the brain that are important for self-regulation and control of attention and emotion," he said. "The rituals that religions have been encouraging for thousands of years seem to be a kind of anaerobic workout for self-control."In a study published by the University of Maryland in 2003, students who were subliminally exposed to religious words (like God, prayer or bible) were slower to recognise words associated with temptations (like drugs or premarital sex). Conversely, when they were primed with the temptation words, they were quicker to recognise the religious words."It looks as if people come to associate religion with tamping down these temptations," Dr McCullough said. "When temptations cross their minds in daily life, they quickly use religion to dispel them from their minds."In one personality study, strongly religious people were compared with people who subscribed to more general spiritual notions, like the idea that their lives were "directed by a spiritual force greater than any human being" or that they felt "a spiritual connection to other people". The religious people scored relatively high in conscientiousness and self-control, whereas the spiritual people tended to score relatively low."Thinking about the oneness of humanity and the unity of nature doesn't seem to be related to self-control," Dr McCullough said. "The self-control effect seems to come from being engaged in religious institutions and behaviours."Does this mean that non-believers like me should start going to church? Even if you don't believe in a supernatural god, you could try improving your self-control by at least going along with the rituals of organised religion.But that probably wouldn't work either, Dr McCullough told me, because personality studies have identified a difference between true believers and others who attend services for extrinsic reasons, like wanting to impress people or make social connections. The intrinsically religious people have higher self-control, but the extrinsically religious do not.So what's a heathen to do in 2009? Dr McCullough's advice is to try replicating some of the religious mechanisms that seem to improve self-control, like private meditation or public involvement with an organisation that has strong ideals.Religious people, he pointed out, are self-controlled not simply because they fear God's wrath, but because they have absorbed the ideals of their religion into their own system of values, and have thereby given their personal goals an aura of sacredness. Dr McCullough suggested that non-believers try a secular version of that strategy."People can have sacred values that aren't religious values," he said. "Self-reliance might be a sacred value to you that's relevant to saving money. Concern for others might be a sacred value that's relevant to taking time to do volunteer work. You can spend time thinking about what values are sacred to you and making New Year resolutions that are consistent with them."Of course, it requires some self-control to carry out that exercise - and maybe more effort than it takes to go to church."Sacred values come prefabricated for religious believers," Dr McCullough added."The belief that God has preferences for how you behave and the goals you set for yourself has to be the granddaddy of all psychological devices for encouraging people to follow through with their goals. That may help to explain why belief in God has been so persistent through the ages."NEW YORK TIMES  | What is certain is that we have a physical body. With all its senses and perceptions we will find enlightenment, with skills and proper judgment we will discover our true self-nature. There is no need to be distracted from that point of view, no need to listen to any fairy tale. |
 | mysef wrote on Apr 1, '09 Interesting... :-)
Religion. Self control.
No religion. Self control.
What I think is what I am.
I am this that I am. ...
Interesting... :-) |
 | adopting a religion is like restricting your diet to a given list of foods.
should we eat only what other people tell us to eat, or drink, and be satisfied?
wouldnt it be better to sample the smorgasbord of religious and spiritual thought,
and select those items that taste best to our minds, and dont leave a nasty aftertaste?
organized religion is like processed food....it has lost its purity.
god doesnt write books, nor does he organize religions, he puts the knowledge of good and evil
within us, and we pervert it thru organized religion and politics.
but when we, like the sick drunk, purge ourselves of the polluting drink, and vow only to ingest the pure truth, we renew ourselves and restore ourselves to his promise. |
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