The Ecology of Spirituality: Meanings, Virtues, and Practices in a Post-Religious Age

2. How Do I Become Spiritual?: Practice as a Category

29 chaPTEr Two How Do I Become Spiritual? Practice as a Category A Traditional Model of Spiritual Practice and Learning Contemporary definitions of spirituality are, as we have seen, very abstract and generic. It is one of the paradoxes of the concept of spirituality today that almost all of its advocates follow up their definitions with examples of specific practices such as meditation or yoga. These, it is assumed, demonstrate spirituality. They are separable from religion, whatever their religious origins. The turn to spirituality is a turn away from just believing things toward doing something. Several anthologies on spirituality are mostly samplers of various practices, and a textbook on spirituality in nursing includes sections not only on meditation but on Chinese geomancy. The goal is to be as eclectic and inclusive as possible, at least in theory. But the relation between these practices, sometimes called “wisdom technologies” after Ken Wilbur (in order to free them from association with religion), and the spirituality definitions focused on meaning and connection is obscure. Our argument will be that, so long as traditional two-poled definitions such as Principe’s were the guide, the link to practices made perfect sense. When one-poled definitions triumphed, making spirituality universal and inescapable, this link became problematic conceptually. Or, to begin from Principe’s phrasing, when spirituality included by definition a pursuit of a “chosen religious ideal,” it made sense to provide set answers to the question “How do I become spiritual?” That is what all the traditional practices aimed to do. When 30 The Ecology of Spirituality spirituality’s meaning loses its tie to a chosen ideal or to an intentional pursuit of something beyond the self, the link is hard to determine. That is why in the more recent literature, it is rare to find someone ask directly, “How do I become spiritual?” The answer is: you do not need to become; you already are. But the inclusion of practices is important, even for those who would answer this way. Practices matter, whether traditional or modified practices. Spirituality is more about doing than about believing. Why and how may be hard to determine. Once again, there is no necessary connection between definitions focused on meaning and connection and the particular activities, such as yoga, recommended to those interested in spirituality. So to investigate this question is not to turn away from definitions but to view them from another angle and to discover a more useful and better-defined category than spirituality. The concept of practice will supplement, balance, and in the end contrast with that of spirituality. It will also help us toward clarifying the values and virtues attributed to spirituality, a concern of great importance and even greater confusion. Once again, close focus on this topic serves as a window, giving us a glimpse into wider cultural shifts that lie behind the rise of spirituality and the felt need for such a category. When Principe looked back at the traditional meaning of the term spirituality, he found it lodged in the devout lives and activities of Roman Catholic religious. It had no other positive use beyond this context, he discovered. Even when he expanded the meaning of the term to correspond to 1983 sensibilities, he kept some key features of the original. For, even with the more contemporary usage, Principe assumed that we were speaking of individuals whose lives centered upon a “chosen religious ideal.” All three words were necessary and important. It was chosen , not passively absorbed. It was religious, although as we have seen, this could be eventually expanded to include all the Van Ness “secular quest” possibilities. And it was an ideal, something to strive to meet. Those who pursue spirituality in Principe’s definition need no longer be members of religious orders, but their existential level-one spirituality is likely guided by the traditional teachings and doctrines of level-two spirituality. The spirituality of the devout occupational therapist, for example, would be centered on his or her faith and life goals as a Christian , not (for Principe) by his or her membership in the CAOT. His or her way to live out a chosen religious ideal might lead to this career, but his or her spirituality drew its source material from Christian tradition. How Do I Become Spiritual? 31 When this was what spirituality meant, there was little need to ask what values and virtues went along with...