Hi Everybody,
Great news this week was that Jason Jarrett flew in from his new home in Vancouver for a brief spell of work in London, and came to supper on Tuesday. We had a really good evening, talking about everything under the sun. And he tells me the Case for Buddhism is about to be launched on the podcast. That's really wonderful news because the podcast has established such a wide audience, 11/12K downloads every month in over 140 countries. It's a genuine window on the world, and the feedback that comes to me via facebook is just remarkable. Every writer loves feedback. It makes all those afternoons spent sweating over a lonely keyboard infinitely worthwhile.
Back to today and today's episode and we're in the middle of a passage that has the sub-heading in the book, ' Problems are the only gym in town! And basically it argues that the constant flow of difficulties and problems in our lives provide the only training ground there is , the only gym in town you might say, for us to develop our emotional and spiritual muscle. They provide, Buddhism constantly reminds us, the only available means for getting the very most out of who we are, for becoming the strongest, the most resilient, the most resourceful, and the most optimistic individual that we are capable of being. We all want those qualities don't we? We're just not sure how to get them. Buddhism opens up for us this new perception of how we might do just that.
If that idea strikes you as an eccentric, not to say somewhat perverse proposition, I can only say that is precisely how it struck me when I first encountered it. ' Who needs problems? 'was my initial response. But of course needing them isn't the issue, it's dealing with them when they inevitably occur that causes so much pain and suffering. The key to unlocking the situation Buddhism teaches, is to see the situation for what it really is. It's not so much the problem itself that is causing the suffering, as our response to it. That may seem an unreal distinction, but in fact it is the fundamentally important one. So fundamental that once we really grasp the truth of it, it can change our whole lives from the inside out.
Indeed, if it is the only truth that you take away from this book, the writing of it will have been worthwhile. Buddhism argues that whether a problem, any problem, big or small, is a cause of suffering, or a source of personal growth, depends essentially on our attitude towards it. And the difference in attitude Buddhism argues, the change from a negative mind-set, to a positive one, is crucial to achieving this huge difference in outcome. And let's face it, that's what we all want don't we? Whatever our personal circumstances may be, however good, howeverbad, we all want to dwell in a positive life state rather than a negative one.
So a Buddhist practice is focused essentially on achieving that crucial attitude chang, and it releases a whole new source of energy and determination. We can't simply think our way into it, ' From now on I'm going to live like this.' Life isn't that simple. We have to learn how to make the change, just as an athlete has to train hard to develop new muscle and to develop new reflexes to get the best out of his or her body, so we have to learn a new set of skills and responses and ways of thinking. It isn't a destination, it's a continuous journey.
There is a striking Buddhist text which goes, ' There is no path to happiness...happiness is the path.' This is that very path. Learning how to achieve this crucial change in attitude towards the tough stuff in our lives. '
As I write those words I know full well just how hard they are to believe. Immensely hard. But hang in there. When I started out on this path no one could,have been more sceptical than me. Such belief as I did have was paper thin. A puff could have blown it away. But...I was going through a very hard time. I happened to be a name at Lloyds in the City of London, and had been defrauded of just about everything I owned. And about a year earlier my wife had met someone else and had left me. So I was living in a kind of grey desert, in a kind of despair. And I couldn't really see any way out. Then Sarah, who is now my beloved wife, who was quite young in her Buddhist practice, had the wisdom to say to me, ' Well they've taken all your money. Are you going to let them take your spirit as well? Why don't you try the practice? So I started. And as I've said, my belief was paper thin.
Since then I have never stopped.
I've never managed to win back the material things I lost that I thought were so crucial to my life. And I've had a multitude of problems since, as we all have of course. Not least the cancer. But I honestly count myself among the happiest people on the planet. Why? Because I find that I have managed to build for myself a stability, a resilience, a constantly positive spirit that remains even when all kinds of tough stuff comes out of the woodwork. The practice has given me this ability to take problems as they come and work out solutions, and to have plenty of life force left over to help others when they need help. As I've mentioned somewhere in the book, people often come up to me and say, ' How do you always manage to have such a positive spirit? ' The answer, strange as it may seem, is that I really don't know...but I believe I owe it entirely to the practice.
Enough for today. Hope you managed to stick with it to the end.
See you next time.
Best wishes,
William
The Case for Buddhism is available from Amazon, and as an e-book on Kindle.
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