Growing Old

By dawn the wren has spent itself in song,
a file rasped against a bicycle chain.
Greeting the mirror, I cannot recognize
the gray-haired revenant grown picket boned,
the stranger’s bitter glance like rotten wood.

 

William Logan

Quote

There is no greater importance in all the world like knowing you are
right and that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes
upon you. Norman Mailer

"I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I
think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's
a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind." Richard
Greenberg

Remember

People won't remember me for what I have, but what I've given. People
won't remember me for what I've done for myself, but for what I've
done for them.

Quote

"Never feel self-pity, the most destructive emotion there is. How awful to be caught up in the terrible squirrel cage of self."

Millicent Fenwick

Memphis Still Frames

Long contemplative car ride
New insights from old friends
Memphis in sight!
The big muddy crossing
Expo deals
Old brick streets and trolley cars
Smart ass hotel desk clerks
Chilly night walks
Pappa Pia's
Homeless people
Roll away beds
A good night's sleep
Free breakfast waffles
More Expo deals
Get the Gitters out 3 mile run
Lunchin'at Sam's
Blues City bus tours
Boyce and David, bus drivers extraordinaire
Memphis: the inside joke
Elvis! I seen him!
10 feet tall and has a bronze butt
Ray, Don't touch or the alarm WILL sound
Civil rights museum
Martin Luther Kings Cadillac
J Smith: 20 years of protesting standing on the same spot
Jump the bus
Beale Street
Five Smokin' Hot and fast Chicago girls
Me, smiling
Pasta pre-race meals at the Spaghetti Warehouse
More Trolley car rides
Hotel room slouching
Race night contemplation
Sleep, fitful
5 am
Yawn
Realization
Breakfast of day old hard boiled eggs and bagels
Nerves
Excitement
Walking to the start
Spandex and bare legs abound, 11,000 pairs strong
Line `em up
3:30, or 3:35? Hmmmm……
Racing?
No, Pacing
The first 20…….Slooooooooow (8:11)
The next 4…….Faaaaaaaaast (7:45)
The next 2.2…….Slooooooooooow motion (9)
Two tiny pictures of Memphis
One in each of my eyes
BONK!
WALL!
First time ever
3:35:08 officially BQ'd with little time to spare
Whew. Relief
Food?
Blech
Eat anyway
Meet up
Walk. Again
Warm shower
Beale Street. Again
Small black man
Smoking a trumpet
BIG black Mariah, singin' blues
And sittin' on Bill's lap
Food!
Prime rib and beer
A mountain of chocolate cake
Tired
More black smokin' trumpet
Walk back solo
Contemplation
Rest easy, the days work is done
Sleep, deep
More free waffles
Stairs? Ugh
Sore? Oh yes
Long contemplative car rides
Home
Thanks and Good byes

Nice trip.

What Motivates You?

What is the motivation behind what you are about to say?

THINK.

If we think about what motivates us, would we still say what we are about to say?

Do you need to complain? Have some one hear your pain? Do you need validation? Do you try and inspire? do you try and teach?

THINK. Before you speak.

What motivates you to run/paddle/bike/swim?

THINK.

Do you need other peoples validation? Do you do it for yourself? DO you challenge yourself enough?

Would learning to swim be a bigger challenge? Would learning to use a GPS and paddle a really long distance challenge you?

THINK.

Quote

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

Buddha

We Have Strange Brains

From a NY times Article, Standing in Someone Else’s Shoes, Almost for Real:

By Benedict Carey

Published: December 1, 2008

From the outside, psychotherapy can look like an exercise in self-absorption. In fact, though, therapists often work to pull people out of themselves: to see their behavior from the perspective of a loved one, for example, or to observe their own thinking habits from a neutral distance.

Skip to next paragraphMarriage counselors have couples role-play, each one taking the other spouse’s part. Psychologists have rapists and other criminals describe their crime from the point of view of the victim. Like novelists or moviemakers, their purpose is to transport people, mentally, into the mind of another.

Now, neuroscientists have shown that they can make this experience physical, creating a “body swapping” illusion that could have a profound effect on a range of therapeutic techniques. At the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience last month, Swedish researchers presented evidence that the brain, when tricked by optical and sensory illusions, can quickly adopt any other human form, no matter how different, as its own.

“You can see the possibilities, putting a male in a female body, young in old, white in black and vice versa,” said Dr. Henrik Ehrsson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who with his colleague Valeria Petkova described the work to other scientists at the meeting. Their full study is to appear online this week in the journal PLoS One. .

The technique is simple. A subject stands or sits opposite the scientist, as if engaged in an interview.. Both are wearing headsets, with special goggles, the scientist’s containing small film cameras. The goggles are rigged so the subject sees what the scientist sees: to the right and left are the scientist’s arms, and below is the scientist’s body.

To add a physical element, the researchers have each person squeeze the other’s hand, as if in a handshake. Now the subject can see and “feel” the new body. In a matter of seconds, the illusion is complete. In a series of studies, using mannequins and stroking both bodies’ bellies simultaneously, the Karolinska researchers have found that men and women say they not only feel they have taken on the new body, but also unconsciously cringe when it is poked or threatened.

In previous work, neuroscientists have induced various kinds of out-of-body experiences using similar techniques. The brain is so easily tricked, they say, precisely because it has spent a lifetime in its own body. It builds models of the world instantaneously, based on lived experience and using split-second assumptions — namely, that the eyes are attached to the skull.

Therapists say the body-swapping effect is so odd that it could be risky for anyone in real mental distress. People suffering from the delusions of schizophrenia or the grandiose mania of bipolar disorder are not likely to benefit from more disorientation, no matter the intent.

But those who seek help for relationship problems, in particular, often begin to moderate their behavior only after they have worked to see the encounters in their daily life from others’ point of view.

“This is especially true for adolescents, who are so self-involved, and also for people who come in with anger problems and are more interested in changing everyone else in their life than themselves,” said Kristene Doyle, director of clinical services at the Albert Ellis Institute in New York.

One important goal of therapy in such cases, Dr. Doyle said, is to get people to generate alternative explanations for others’ behavior — before they themselves react.

The evidence that inhabiting another’s perspective can change behavior comes in part from virtual-reality experiments. In these studies, researchers create avatars that mimic a person’s every movement. After watching their “reflection” in a virtual mirror, people mentally inhabit this avatar at some level, regardless of its sex, race or appearance. In several studies, for instance, researchers have shown that white people who spend time interacting virtually as black avatars become less anxious about racial differences.

Jeremy Bailenson, director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University, and his colleague Nick Yee call this the Proteus effect, after the Greek god who can embody many different self-representations.

In one experiment, the Stanford team found that people inhabiting physically attractive avatars were far more socially intimate in virtual interactions than those who had less appealing ones. The effect was subconscious: the study participants were not aware that they were especially good-looking, or that in virtual conversations they moved three feet closer to virtual conversation partners and revealed more about themselves than others did. This confidence lingered even after the experiment was over, when the virtual lookers picked more attractive partners as matches for a date.

Similar studies have found that people agree to contribute more to retirement accounts when they are virtually “age-morphed” to look older; and that they will exercise more after inhabiting an avatar that works out and loses weight.

Adding a physical body-swapping element, as the Swedish team did, is likely to amplify such changes. “It has video quality, it looks and feels more realistic than what we can do in virtual environments, so is likely to be much more persuasive,” Dr. Bailenson said in a telephone interview.

Perhaps too persuasive for some purposes. “It may be like the difference between a good book, where you can project yourself into a character by filling in with your imagination, and a movie, where the specific actor gets in the way of identifying strongly,” he went on.

And above and beyond any therapeutic purposes, the sensation is downright strange. In the experiments, said Dr. Ehrsson, the Swedish researcher, “even the feeling from the squeezing hand is felt in the scientist’s hand and not in your own; this is perhaps the strangest aspect of the experience.”

the time of my life

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.....

Green Day.

is it knowable?

In the past 11 months,, I've been the perpetrator, the guilty, the jilted, the peevish, the jealous, the angry, the depressed, the euphoric, the anxious, the ........ you name it. I have tried to find "it". Today, I realized I was the 'victim', I quickly felt that, let it go appropriately, and then started questioning whether I had "it" right or not. When you think you are it, you find yourself mistaken.

Questioning what "it" is.

Trying to find "it", through emotions is impossible. Trying to find "it" through self-analysis, is just as futile. Trying to find "it" via thinking? Whoa boy, don't go there. Madness lay that way.

Even the fact of looking for "it" is a rabbit hole in itself.

I no longer even want to know what "it" is. I think "it" is unknowable.

But: "it" just is.

Look at your reflection in a pool of water.

Say to yourself: "It" is me. But I am not "it".

Quote

Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. -Einstein

Quote

The human being may be no more real than is a cinematograph film. When the projected light is switched off all that remains is a blank screen. That which has been projected by light was a series of 'stills'. Such also is what is being projected by 'life'. The more you consider the analogy the more perfect it seems to be: it could help us to understand.

How to survive an emotional crash

When you get on an airplane, they patiently explain to you how to find the escape hatches, use your seat as a flotation device, and use the oxygen masks should the deploy.

One of the first things they tell you about the oxygen masks is that you should first put you own on, before trying assist other passengers.

The same is true of emotional health. You cannot help someone else if you are not emotionally healthy.
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We are also the only people in charge of our own emotional health.

Psychology tells us that all emotions are preceded by a thought. How you think about something leads to an emotional response, and the only person in control of this process is YOU. When you choose to REACT, emotionally to someone elses actions, you are no longer in control, they are.

You can put this control in someone else's hands. This will inevitably lead to an emotional crash, due to loss of control, or lack of expected response.

You don't control anyone; they don't control you. You only control yourself. When you take back this control, you will become emotionally healthy. Discursive thinking leads to poor emotional responses, which leads to more thinking, and more emotional responses. the cycle spirals, and you will inevitably crash. Once started, you then make bad decisions or reactions, which lead to more thoughts and emotions. Wow, what a vicious cycle.

I put this control in other peoples hands. I trust, I expect they will act in a way that is in my best interest.

I expected some sort of closure from the last person who will ever be able to give it to me; I wanted understanding, I wanted emotional healing, and I wanted it for her too. That was wrong, to expect this, wrong to think we could give it to each other. I probably only stirred up her emotional pot as well, as that was not what I intended to do. I did not intend to hurt her again.

Peace.

Quote

"The past is finished. There is nothing to be gained by going over it. Whatever it gave us in the experiences it brought us was something we had to know."

Rebecca Beard

"The past cannot be changed.
The future is yet in your power."
- Hugh White

What is the Monkey Mind?

The Monkey. He is you. You get in your own way.

He jumps out from behind the tree. Images roll though your mind like flash cards, unrequested and intrusive. Sometimes graphic, almost always emotional charged.

BOO!

Sometimes appearing out of no where. Is he testing you? Or is he on your back and you don't see him whispering in your ear? Let your guard down, for even a minute. He will.

Repetitive thoughts, rolling without course, spider webbed-linked by strange connections like a dream. Bounce from one topic to another, non-stop. The Monkey. He is the unconscious mind. He always, ALWAYS wants to be going somewhere. Anywhere. Bad, good, it's all the same to him. He is the block to mindfulness, the block to lucidity. The king of toppling forward, looking backward.

For a while, he is interested in the meditation practice. But he gets bored with it after a few weeks, and starts throwing bananas.

SHOCK the monkey? Doesn't work. He gets even more unruly. So how to contain him?

Practice, Practice, Practice!

Quote

Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.

Quote

"If one speaks or acts with a cruel mind, misery follows, as the cart follows the horse... If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows, as a shadow follows its source."

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves. - Buddha .

Wise man or a fool?

Buddha said that the difference between a wise man and a fool lies in their intention. If we have a beneficial intention we are wise because all of our actions will be positive. Through engaging in positive actions we will experience good results in this life. We will create the causes for pleasant and enjoyable circumstances. If we have a bad intention our actions become impure and negative and therefore our experiences produce nothing but suffering.

So how can we change our intention? One of the best ways is to begin the practice of cherishing others. As long as we only cherish our self and think of our own happiness we will find it almost impossible to avoid committing negative actions such as killing, stealing, lying, etc. However, if we gradually begin to cherish others, recognizing that they are just like us in wishing to be happy and avoiding suffering, then our intention will become more and more pure. Eventually actions such as killing, sexual misconduct, and hurtful speech will be impossible to commit. Positive actions will become easy for us and each day we will sow the seeds for future happiness.

If we don't use our human life to practice virtue then there can be no greater deception or folly.

Fool or wise man? Guess which I am today.

do you practice careful speech?

Careful speech. Our words have the power to heal, or they have the power to hurt. If they do not serve to help and heal the receiver, ask yourself what possible good can they do? Are they critical? Are they instructive? Are they delivered with vengeance? Justice? Or are they delivered with kindness, and or a hope for improvement? Understanding?

Who are they spoken for, the other, or our own need? Vindictive words? Help no one. Neither ourselves, nor the one they are directed to. No matter how much personal truth they may carry. Hurtful words beget more hurtful words, and somewhere it has to stop. Let it stop with you. (I also wonder why this is so much harder with the ones we love? The one's we should be even more careful with? Why do we hurt the ones we love with indiscriminate speech?)

If they do not heal, they HURT. All of us.

Look into your heart, and ask, no matter how carefully worded, no matter about personal truth, were all of your words spoken with love? No? Then: No more.

No more hurtful words. No more talk about the PPasT. Someone set down a bag, and I picked it up. Now I can't let it go. Why? Attachment, that's why. I attach to bad feelings as much as I attach to good feelings.

Baggage. Is MY choice. Time to set it down, and not expect someone else to pick it up. Check your bags at the door, the door to a peaceful mind.

Quote

If we utilize our favorable circumstances, such as our good health or wealth, in positive ways, in helping others, they can be contributory factors in achieving a happier life.
Dalai Lama

within

Fear.

Within.

The snarling dog.

Not out there.

It’s you.

Get your balance.

Look at it. Directly.

Make space for it.

Fear of flying

It takes courage to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

It takes courage to NOT jump out, turn around, and land it too.

Which ever you choose, do it with conviction, and do it without regret.

Today. Is a good day. To jump. Or not to jump.

Quote

Karen Hall and Jerry Stahl

"If you're here for four more years or four more weeks, you're here right now. I think when you're somewhere, you ought to be there. It's not about how long you stay in a place, it's about what you do while you're there, and when you go, is that place any better for your having been there?"

Quote

"There are worse things than looking stupid. Sleeping through life is one of them."

Laura Preble

What is anxiety?

In Buddhist terms, I limit the definition to self-created stress and worry, over conditions that have occurred, or are projected to occur in the future. Almost always, our fears never turn out to be even close to what reality brings. Anxiety is 100% creation of conditions INSIDE of us, projected to the outside world. (Sometimes our anxiety is self serving, and actually creates the conditions needed for our fears to come true. But that is another post).

The fear, of say, Nuclear war would be a big one.

Trouble is, most of fears and worries are much, much smaller than that. Will I be able to pay the rent? Why did that person say that, and what exactly did they mean by it? (And don't get me started on e-mail. Talk about dysfunctional communication that fosters multiple interpretation Yikes).

All of this increases our internal dialog, which clouds our perceptions, and moods. The more internal dialog, the more worry. The more worry, more dialog until it reaches a crescendo of a nervous breakdown, or hopefully burns itself out, or we finally say ENOUGH! This is getting me no where.

STOP. The dialog, stop the anxiety. Let it flow naturally. Stop obsessive planning, evaluating. Stop the need for control of what other people do, or say.

My trouble is: as I stop the dialog, then the monkey thinks he can come in and fix it, with the available space. Funny how open space invites us to FILL IT UP. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the mind really doesn't like it.

Peace of mind comes from being aware of what's here. Right now.

The whole universe

Each moment in time we have it all, even when we think we don't.

Our veiled perception, our monkeymind, distracts our minds eye from the truth. The monkey has been taught to want something different than what we have, right now.

Peace. A quality that comes from the inside, not from conditions outside of us.

"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet." ~ Franz Kafka

Are you grateful?

It is pleasant to have been to a place the way a river went. But each second the time-river has passed, it's never the same river. You can't get back 'there'. There is no there there, there is only here.

It leaves it's residue, and we should be grateful to have felt the waters passing over us. They change us, moisten us, nourish us, revive us.
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Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us."
-Albert Schweitzer

Are we what we do?

We live in a human dream, being one in which everything appears purely in the guise of it's human utility, and held in place by it's human name. Names are small and sinister metaphors which restrict, absolutely, the use of an object. Our eyes open to this madness every morning and at night we dream within the dream; whole lives are spent without so as a ripple of doubt reaching the surface.

But when the object is allowed to shrug off it's name, it begins the long journey back to it's own mystery- on upon reaching the core of it's own estranging fire, radiates until the whole world is unified by it. The rose or the paper clip; either could open the path back to our awakening.

-Don Pattersen-, Best Thought-Worst Thought (aphorisms)
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My thoughts: By naming, assigning, we lose the intrinsic object and instead replace it with the idea of the object instead of the object itself. Can you look at a flower, and not think "flower"? Assigning values and memories to it?

When this is applied to people, we lose the uniqueness we all seek; the marvelous fact that we exist at all is mired in roles, functions. We get boxed up in titles, creating a self-image that exists no where but in our own minds. That 'self' we create is not in the minds of others (duality of existence?) They do not see us as we see ourselves. We rarely think of ourselves as our actions, but that is how others see us, define us.

When we think of another, it's a string of words or memories in relation to how we know them, what their role is against our own. This is of course colored by our interactions, both good and bad. Memories of that person become charged with emotions, sometimes attracting, sometimes repelling, sometimes neutral. But rarely can we think of anyone's uniqueness, to revel in the marvel that they exist, like we do.

It's that existence that is just so incredible.

Quote

"On a lazy Saturday morning when you're lying in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, there is a space where fantasy and reality become one. Are you awake, or are you dreaming? You see people and things; some are familiar; some are strange. You talk, you feel, but you move without walking; you fly without wings. Your mind and your body exist, but on separate planes. Time stands still. For me, this is the feeling I have when ideas come."

Lynn Johnston

What is not there?

Do our thoughts on an object then change the nature of the object, or does it mean a change in us? When you think of white, can you see it without the contrast and comparison of black? Can I see the white hole, without the surrounding black?

Is the absence of something the same as Not-That-Thing or is it non-existence?

I would answer: the absence of something makes everything else Not-That-Thing, not the non-existence of that thing.

Once you have knowledge of a thing, everything else can be Not-That-Thing. That can be a very hollow feeling. Sometimes I think our memory and knowledge of the past can be a torturous, longing ache. My thoughts every day, are still a Not-That-Thing process.

Message to Tod

Hi Tod,

Its nice to see how at peace you are.

Thanks for listening to me Sunday night. The mind is a funny thing. I wonder sometimes why we continually get in our own way. (I have a monkey mind for sure). All of this, all of it, is in my own mind. My perspective on things changes, sometimes every day (thoughts of that person, are not that person). I wonder if I will ever know what the TRUTH was. It just seems so slippery

It’s funny how I know, I know that all I have to do is sit quietly in the moment. Yet, my mind insists that it can still fix things in the past. If I work it just right, if I find myself getting to a good place, I continually THEN to try and go back in. Firm ground, is firm ground. Nothing about jumping back into the quicksand helps stabilize me.

I watch the process, and each time I watch it, I get better at getting back onto dry land and staying there. Whew. Deep breath. Today is a really, really good day. Nothing to do, or undo.

I am working at trying to be a better listener, and not just a talker. I have hardly ever learned anything by talking. I know whatever I’ve gone through, and am going through, you’ve been there too. I want to hear more, when and if it’s not too painful to go back there.

It’s always really helpful to talk about it. You and Scribbly have been a big part of my healing, for no other reason than to just listen. I’ve been talking now for ….close to four months, and I probably should have started talking sooner. I think I am almost done talking. I know I’m done talking, and reasoning, and justifying circumstances, but I’m not done talking about the mind and it’s process. (FYI: I think Scribbly has some stuff that needs work. He hinted at it yesterday on our paddle. A beautiful day!)

Thanks again Tod.

Can you surf?

When you are in emotional turmoil it's interesting to watch, if you have enough cognition, the waves. How from day-to-day, your perception of events, and feelings about things change.

Waves.

One day, you feel good. On top of the world. You are the elephant, and your problems are like flies. You can face it, directly.
Can you realize those emotions are going to come and go? Rise and fall?


Can you surf?

Can you let go of what other people think of you?

Can you eliminate the need for their approval?

Will this make you less likely to avoid saying or doing things just to NOT hurt them?

Will this cause you to speak your mind more freely? Can you do this with gentleness, knowing how other people may respond?

This one is tough. It's going to take vigilance.

Quote

"Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully."

Frances Moore Lappe

Tragedies

Tragedy is not moral. It's amoral. It contains no component of morality. Morality appeals and applies to our sense of justice/injustice. When something 'unjust' has been done, it violates, or probably violates a moral code. Immorality seems to contains elements of commission; acts against someone or something.

Tragedy is: Falling down the stairs; Coincidence, opening your car door at the wrong moment into traffic; Cancer; Accidents.

Tragedy sometime contains elements of omission, often elements of comedy. (future post: Comedy. the sense of irony that the universe has aligned itself against us. The roll of the dice comes up snake eyes, we find a pattern and assume the universe is against us. The real ironic comedy of course is that the universe is cold and indifferent to our needs and wants. Give the sky the finger, shake your fist. The sky looks on, forever unimpressed).

Americans have a slippery grasp of tragedy vs morality. This is why we sue everyone, especially Doctors, for anything. We want someone to blame. We want to absolve ourselves from the realization that the world is cold, and indifferent to our needs. We have this sense justice', that confuses our egocentric belief that everything should always be a Hollywood happy end the way we want it to. When it doesn't it is injustice or negligence (not the same thing, another thing we confuse).

Hegel wrote that tragedy is the collision of right with right. There is tragedy when conditions or decisions are at irreconcilable differences. For then whatever happens, or whatever we decide has some component of wrong in it. Even so, tragedy has nothing to do with morality or justice.

Tragedy: it's much more personal than morality, but still feels like injustice.

Sunday Morning Questions

I created this blog on a Sunday morning, when all I usually have is questions, and very few answers. And even my answers can change on an hour by hour basis, which makes me question my understanding or TRUTH, but that is a another question. It's an exercise in futility, really. These questions have perplexed much smarter men than I over countless ages. But neurotically, I keep asking anyway. It's ironic that it occurs on Sunday mornings, the time when many people are off to 'worship' services of various types.

When I say Sunday Morning questions, I don't (always) mean questions of religion. Religion (of all types) seeks to be the answer for all our questions, when in fact it is the opposite of answers. It shuts off our questions not with viable answers, or even a "I don't know", but with promises based on 'faith'. (Empty promises, my opinion, that it cannot keep, and since it doesn't 'deliver' on promises until the afterlife, no one can cry foul).

By it's very nature, religion provides a false framework, a construct of reality based on language and time. It attempts to provide comfort, a release to the aches. To alleviate feelings of separation, and give feelings of a greater purpose. The community of a church (or almost any organization), tries to gives us a sense of purpose, of common ground with its fellow seekers. Lemmings, basically. Followers. Because we can't trust our own thoughts, our own understandings, Religion seeks to provide those for you.

So my Sunday Morning question is: What is Religion? Lets start with the dictionary:

"a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs."

For the time being lets say the first part is unknowable, untestable, and relies completely on FAITH. That is this part: A set of beliefs.... creation of a superhuman agency...

Lets skip the rituals and observances. These are the human trappings of myth put into action. Not much to them, it's all form.

So to define the component of religion we can get our hands on:

Morality. Moral Code.

Quote

"Personally I have struggled massively with the dilemma of talent vs desire. Choosing desire may not always be the easiest thing to do. It may seem a waste to leave those natural talents behind and strike out in a new direction. But at least you’ll feel alive."

Meri Williams