Hi Everybody,
Started packing! Taking a pause to get this episode completed.
So last time we finished with two important quotes from renowned psychologists Martin Seligman and Daniel Goleman making it clear that optimism and hope and resilience aren't just qualities that we're lucky to have if we're born with them, unlucky if we're not, we can learn how to build them into our lives; ' Optimism is a leaned skill.' Martin Seligman tells us. Moreover...' Once learned it increases achievement at work and improves physical health.'
That is a huge learning isn't it? They are telling us that we have a clear choice. If it so happens that we have built the absence of hope into our lives up till now, or even pessimism and despair, once we become fully self-aware of that fact, we can learn how to replace those negative life states with optimism and hope. That is a pwerful confirmation of the proposition that Buddhism has always presented to us. A Buddhist practice is entirely about building a wholly capable individual who can do precisely what Daniel Goleman has written about, namely having the courage to meet those ' challenges as they come up ' rather than being knocked down or disabled by them
So Buddhism, with its essential humanism and its focus on the power of the human spirit sets out to define greater happiness, for oneself and others, as the fundamental objective of human life, in the here and now. As I write that, after many years of Buddhist practice, I am intensely aware of just how bold and uncompromising and value-creating that is as a vision of life. No if's and but's and maybe's. That is says, is what we are seeking. All the more remarkable in that it was set out all those centuries ago, when life was considerably rougher and tougher and certainly less forgiving than it is now.
And once again the extraordinary thing is just how closely that principle accords with the views of today's evolutionary biologists and positive psychologists, who argue, strictly on the basis of their research, tha tthe quest for happiness is the ultimate motivational force in life. What does ulitmate mean in this context? It means that it doesn't require any further definition. It speaks for itself. We may initially express it to ourselves in other terms; we want to be healthy for example, or have better relationships, or a better job, or achieve a qualification, and many other items of desire that we might list. But all those items are only important in the sense that they contribute to our happiness. They are stepping stones you might say, on the way to our ultimate goal. Moreover the scientists have clearly demonstrated to their own satisfaction, that it is a truly universal quality. It cuts across all the boundaries that you can think of; national and religious and ethnic and status. It is if you like, a fundamantal element in the human condition.
So that close alignment of views does give us a very different perspective doesn't it? It means that this powerful and life-changing idea that Buddhism offers to us, an idea that many people find so unusual and hard to swallow, because it is so bold and uncompromising, is doing nothing more than recognising the essential character of our universal human nature. Doing no more than pointing out to us that this truly is the most powerful motivator in human life, and that it can be harnessed as an instrument of change...to enable us to lead fuller and richer lives.
That's it for today. I have to say I am very much enjoying covering this ground again. I wasn't at all sure about starting the blog on The case for Buddhism but now I believe firmly that it offers a wholly different way of getting these essential truths out there for discussion. I hope some of you, most of you, agree with that.
All my best wishes, and thanks for your reading thus far.
William Woollard
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