Hi Everybody,
One of the main reasons for writing this book was to see how classical Buddhist teachings about how to live a fulfilling and value-creating life stand up in relation to the really facinating and illuminating findings that are coming out of the latest social and psychological research. My view basically is that it's important not to have our head inside the box so to speak, but to measure what we learn from Buddhism against what else we know about the world and the way life, as indeed both Shakyamuni and Nichiren asked us to do. Don't accept our teachings on face value they made clear, question and debate them to ensure that they make sense in relation to your life. And that's basically what the Case for Buddhism does. It looks at Buddhist teaching in relation to the vastly increased understanding we now have of the way people function. That's why this next sub heading is...
A brief sideways look at the research
' It is remarkable just how much research there has been over the past decade or so, seeking to define what kinds of things make people feel good about themselves and their lives and their relationships, what kinds of things people have in their minds when they talk about a sense of stability, or a general sense of completeness and well-being, when they look across the totality of their lives. And that is of course an important point to emphasise, that we are talking about the totality of people's lives, the average sense of stability and well-being, rather than the inevitable short-term fluctuations from day to day or week to week.
This sort of research has steadily grown from a trickle a decade or so ago, to a veritable avalanche. And I have to say straightaway that it's a great pity that many of these findings never or rarely see the light of day, beyond publication in some...for most of us...remote and inaccessible journal such as the Journal of Behaviour and Social Psychology, or the Journal of Applied Psychology or the American Journal of Sociology, to be read by professionals in the field and quoted in their equally erudite papers, later to be published in the same relatively inaccessible journals! It's a great pity because the plain fact is that this research is opening up for us a whole new world of insights into what it is that can really make people's lives sing; make them places of joy and satisfactionand fulfilment. Really important stuff therefore for all of us.
Take for example something as seemingly simple as getting people to keep a gratitude journal. That means just taking the time once or twice a week to actually write down a handful of things that you feel truly grateful for in the current week. Pretty simple yes? But several studies reveal that something that simple and easy to do can give a genuinely powerful and enduring boost to your sense of well-being. And what's more, this highly desirable result seems to hold true, whatever your actual life circumstances happen to be at the time. If you think about it, all thse people are doing is actually taking the trouble to express their gratitude, even if only to themselves!
Another group of findings relates to the fact that quite clearly, positive changes in our own life state, as Buddhists might express it, an increase in our general sense of well-being, is not in any way limited to our emotional or mental activities, inside our heads so to speak, it is undoubtedly a whole body or whole life experience. As one of the most respected and most prominent researchers in the filed has expressed it recently, when we have a deeper and more stable sense of well-being in our lives...
' we also improve other aspects of our lives...our energy levels, our immune systems, our engagement with work, and with other people, and our physical and mental health. In becoming happier we also bolster our feelings of self-confidence and self-esteem, we come truly to believe that we are worthy human beings, worthy of respect. A final and perhaps least appreciated plus is that if we become happier we benefit not only ourselves, but also our partners, families, communities and even society at large.'
Now those are all qualities we would dearly wish to achieve for ourselves and others aren't they? So clearly these findings are not dealing with some marginal stuff lying somewhere out on the edges of our experience. They touch upon issues that lie right at the centre of our lives from day to day, our ordinary daily lives.
And the key point that I would ask you to grasp is that the issues that the scientists and sociologists are talking about, not the language or the phraseology that is used of course, but the basic issues themselves, would be immediately familiar to anyone who regularly attends Buddhist discussion meetings or seminars, since these are the very issues that are discussed at such meetings. These are the very qualities that a Buddhist practice is seeking to to initiate and nurture in our lives. Buddhist teachings that is, and these sociological studies are walking across the same ground..our daily lives...and expressing very similar ideas about enhancing them.
Now I find that very exciting. I hope you do too!
That's it for today. Tomorrow I'm off to Antibes in the South of France. I love the place. I used to have a house there and I've been going there every year for longer than I care to admit to. So the next episode won't be until mid September.
I look forward truly to seeing you again then. And again I express my gratitude if you find it possible to introduce anyone else to the blog. It takes a fair bit of effort to stick at it, and that effort would be doubly rewarded if you managed to introduce another person.
Best wishes,
William
Thursday 21 August 2014
Monday 18 August 2014
my buddhist blog number 56
Hi Everybody,
As I think I mentioned a couple of episodes ago, I'm off on my hols again next weekend...I have to say it's been a great year for holidays, three so far!!...but I am hoping to squeeze in three episodes this week to make up. And I'll be taking the SGI study notes away with me so that I can start study sessions when I get back. I love the fact that during the study sessions I can smell the sun tan cream on the notes and see the salt stains, it's a great memory of the summer. Anyway we're in chapter 8, and we're talking naboout Buddhahood, what is it? And we ended up saying that the Buddha Nature we are told in Nichiren Buddhism, is a universal quality that we can all learn to draw upon or harness in our daily life.
' Once again it is unquestionably a huge life-changing idea, nothing less than a revolution in the spiritual history of mankind. It was central to Shakyamuni's enlightenment, and was revolutionary when it was first made clear in the Lotus Sutra. It was no less revolutionary when Nichiren spent so much of his life explaining its implications in 13th Century Japan. And I suggest, it remains revolutionary today, in the sense of being a very difficult idea to grasp hold of and to act upon, as the central inspiration for living through all the mundane muddle of our daily lives.
And as we've seen, that in essence is what the daily practice is about, helping us to move along that path of understanding, and to fold that understanding into the detail of our lives. It's a cooking word of course, folding, but it is precisely right it seems to me, for what we are trying to express here. It means taking this bold and utterly uncompromising but somewhat alien teaching, an blending it into the very texture of our lives so that it becomes indistinguishable from the rest. From my experience that is by no means an easy thing to do. It takes real commitment and above all constant perseverance. But the rewards in terms of a deep and enduring sense of gratitude and well-being...again in my experience...are unequalled. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this!
Human scale qualities
So what do we mean then by Budha nature? How should we come to terms with it and represent it to ourselves so that it makes everyday sense to us. The somewhat surprising fact is that it is defined quite simply in terms of ordinary and above all, human scale qualities or characteristics. There is nothing even vaguely superhuman or other-wordly about them. Indeed they are all qualities that we can all make very good use of in the turbulence of our daily lives; a powerful inner resource of courage and resilience no matter what challenges we encounter, that's immensely valuable isn't it? A sense of wisdom or judgement that enables us to understand more clearly where and how we can create value. And a strongly developed sense of compassion that enables us always to go towards people warmly and supportively.
Of course we're all ordinary human beings so achieving these qualities is in no way a static state, a place you arrive at. It is, like life itself, dynamic and constantly changing, hence the daily-ness of the practice. But perhaps the key point to hang onto is the essential down-to-earth humanity of the idea. Thus all the historically recorded Buddhas, were ordinary human beings. It's crucially important to remember that; immensely wise and perceptive and deeply compassionate but still ordinarily human, with their share of the basic human qualities that we would all recognise, as an essential part of their lives, never to be got rid of. Buddhahood that is, has got nothing to do with an aspiration towards perfection, nothing to do with superhuman abilities, or transcendental powers.
Just as Buddhism is about daily life, so Buddhahood we learn, can only reveal itself in the lives of ordinary people, like us, going about their daily life.
Courage, wisdom and compassion
So the courage does not mean the soldier's bravery. It's not the absence of fear so much as the courage to overcome the fear and the negativity that we all have experience of in our lives, sometims to the point of paralysis; fear of so many things, fear of failure, of rejection, of isolation, of inadequacy. Winning over our own negative road blocks is often the toughest part of any challenge. We need this everyday type of courage to confront problems as they arise, rather than denying them until they loom so large they threaten to overwhelm us. As we all know it takes real courage to face up to our own greatest weaknesses.
The wisdom is not about the profound perceptions of the philosopher, but rather a greater awareness of what is really going on in any situation, and an alert and lively common sense as to what action is appropriate. It's also a deeper and closer knowledge of ourselves, our strengths and our weaknesses, and the ability to see the repeated patterns in our own behaviour that can cause so much suffering, so that we can set about changing them.
The compassion is not so much concern for those less fortunate than ourselves, but the ability to see and comprehend the true nature of our life and its relationship to the lives of those around us. It is much more about profound respect and understanding for ourselves of course as well as others, we can often be all too hard on our own failings. But above all we find it immensely difficult to see situations from the other person's point of view, whether it's in a disagreement with our closest partner, or a fierce argument with a colleague. It is compassion that breeds the desire to understand the other person's point of view, even when it is diametrically opposed to our own. I think we could argue that compassion is always in short supply in today's world.
But knowing about thses qualities isn't the same as having them, or experiencing them is it? I fully accept that those are just verbal descriptions, just abunch of words you might say. They mean something on the page of course, but inevitably they convey little of the challenge of putting them into practice, of living them rather than knowing them. And still less of the richness of the personal experience as you come to realise that these qualities are informing more and more of your life.
But let's hang onto that brief sketch of the Buddha nature, and look sideways now at the sort of parallel understanding that is coming out of world of social research, on the same issue, how to go about our daily lives most efectively and most creatively. '
That's more than enough for today I'm sure. I've gone on a bit.
Thank you for reading thus far.
See you next time I hope.
William
The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon, and on Kindle.
As I think I mentioned a couple of episodes ago, I'm off on my hols again next weekend...I have to say it's been a great year for holidays, three so far!!...but I am hoping to squeeze in three episodes this week to make up. And I'll be taking the SGI study notes away with me so that I can start study sessions when I get back. I love the fact that during the study sessions I can smell the sun tan cream on the notes and see the salt stains, it's a great memory of the summer. Anyway we're in chapter 8, and we're talking naboout Buddhahood, what is it? And we ended up saying that the Buddha Nature we are told in Nichiren Buddhism, is a universal quality that we can all learn to draw upon or harness in our daily life.
' Once again it is unquestionably a huge life-changing idea, nothing less than a revolution in the spiritual history of mankind. It was central to Shakyamuni's enlightenment, and was revolutionary when it was first made clear in the Lotus Sutra. It was no less revolutionary when Nichiren spent so much of his life explaining its implications in 13th Century Japan. And I suggest, it remains revolutionary today, in the sense of being a very difficult idea to grasp hold of and to act upon, as the central inspiration for living through all the mundane muddle of our daily lives.
And as we've seen, that in essence is what the daily practice is about, helping us to move along that path of understanding, and to fold that understanding into the detail of our lives. It's a cooking word of course, folding, but it is precisely right it seems to me, for what we are trying to express here. It means taking this bold and utterly uncompromising but somewhat alien teaching, an blending it into the very texture of our lives so that it becomes indistinguishable from the rest. From my experience that is by no means an easy thing to do. It takes real commitment and above all constant perseverance. But the rewards in terms of a deep and enduring sense of gratitude and well-being...again in my experience...are unequalled. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this!
Human scale qualities
So what do we mean then by Budha nature? How should we come to terms with it and represent it to ourselves so that it makes everyday sense to us. The somewhat surprising fact is that it is defined quite simply in terms of ordinary and above all, human scale qualities or characteristics. There is nothing even vaguely superhuman or other-wordly about them. Indeed they are all qualities that we can all make very good use of in the turbulence of our daily lives; a powerful inner resource of courage and resilience no matter what challenges we encounter, that's immensely valuable isn't it? A sense of wisdom or judgement that enables us to understand more clearly where and how we can create value. And a strongly developed sense of compassion that enables us always to go towards people warmly and supportively.
Of course we're all ordinary human beings so achieving these qualities is in no way a static state, a place you arrive at. It is, like life itself, dynamic and constantly changing, hence the daily-ness of the practice. But perhaps the key point to hang onto is the essential down-to-earth humanity of the idea. Thus all the historically recorded Buddhas, were ordinary human beings. It's crucially important to remember that; immensely wise and perceptive and deeply compassionate but still ordinarily human, with their share of the basic human qualities that we would all recognise, as an essential part of their lives, never to be got rid of. Buddhahood that is, has got nothing to do with an aspiration towards perfection, nothing to do with superhuman abilities, or transcendental powers.
Just as Buddhism is about daily life, so Buddhahood we learn, can only reveal itself in the lives of ordinary people, like us, going about their daily life.
Courage, wisdom and compassion
So the courage does not mean the soldier's bravery. It's not the absence of fear so much as the courage to overcome the fear and the negativity that we all have experience of in our lives, sometims to the point of paralysis; fear of so many things, fear of failure, of rejection, of isolation, of inadequacy. Winning over our own negative road blocks is often the toughest part of any challenge. We need this everyday type of courage to confront problems as they arise, rather than denying them until they loom so large they threaten to overwhelm us. As we all know it takes real courage to face up to our own greatest weaknesses.
The wisdom is not about the profound perceptions of the philosopher, but rather a greater awareness of what is really going on in any situation, and an alert and lively common sense as to what action is appropriate. It's also a deeper and closer knowledge of ourselves, our strengths and our weaknesses, and the ability to see the repeated patterns in our own behaviour that can cause so much suffering, so that we can set about changing them.
The compassion is not so much concern for those less fortunate than ourselves, but the ability to see and comprehend the true nature of our life and its relationship to the lives of those around us. It is much more about profound respect and understanding for ourselves of course as well as others, we can often be all too hard on our own failings. But above all we find it immensely difficult to see situations from the other person's point of view, whether it's in a disagreement with our closest partner, or a fierce argument with a colleague. It is compassion that breeds the desire to understand the other person's point of view, even when it is diametrically opposed to our own. I think we could argue that compassion is always in short supply in today's world.
But knowing about thses qualities isn't the same as having them, or experiencing them is it? I fully accept that those are just verbal descriptions, just abunch of words you might say. They mean something on the page of course, but inevitably they convey little of the challenge of putting them into practice, of living them rather than knowing them. And still less of the richness of the personal experience as you come to realise that these qualities are informing more and more of your life.
But let's hang onto that brief sketch of the Buddha nature, and look sideways now at the sort of parallel understanding that is coming out of world of social research, on the same issue, how to go about our daily lives most efectively and most creatively. '
That's more than enough for today I'm sure. I've gone on a bit.
Thank you for reading thus far.
See you next time I hope.
William
The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon, and on Kindle.
Tuesday 12 August 2014
my buddhist blog number 55
Hi Everybody,
We ended the last session talking about the importance of establishing a steady, regular daily practice, because it is that structure, that discipline if you like, that steady progression towards the positive that enables us to become more capable, more effective, more contributing, in all the multiple, overlapping roles that we all have to fulfil, as parents and as partners, as teachers and colleagues at work and as friends at play. And of course as responsible people living in society. And one must add, with a greater sense of well-being; a claim that is amply borne out in the vast body of social research we now have on what kinds of things contribute to a stable sense of well-being. It's clear that our awareness of our own improved self confidence and our own increased ability to contribute to others, both play play a huge role in what constitutes happiness in this life.
We all want fundamentally to be capable people, in all the roles we inhabit. No one wants ever to be thought incapable!!
As we've seen, Buddhism chooses to call that resilient, life-enhancing inner strength that we learn how to grow, Buddhahood. And it chooses to call the confident awareness of its existence enlightenment. Those are of course unusual and infrequently used words in our western vocabulary, but when it comes down to it, they are just names! We shouldn't allow their unusual-ness and unfamiliarity to deflect us the central fact that the qualities that they represent are not in any way other-worldly or esoteric; they are demonstrably part of our everyday, down-to-earth reality. But before we dip into someof the important and immensely revealing social research I've mentioned, let's briefly tackle this central concept of Buddhahood.
So, what do we really mean by Buddhahood? I don't think we'll be able to squeeze the whole of the answer to that question into this episode, but we'll get a fair way.
So we are wholly accustomed in the western world to thinking of the ' the Buddha ' as being the great historical figure of Shakyamuni. There have of course been many other men who have been given the title Buddha down the intervening centuries, but when we attach that definite article, we are undoubtedly referring to Shakyamuni himself. As we discussed earlier, he made no claims to divinity or to divine inspiration during his long lifetime. Indeed he specifically forbade his followers from making any such connection. However it is unquestionably the case that in western minds he clearly occupies a place alongside the other great founders of religions such as jesus and Mohammed, who did of course claim a divine connection. Indeed that was the very basis of their life on this Earth, they claimed to be the only channel through which God's or Allah's purpose was transmitted to mankind.
As a result of this parallel status, if I may put it that way, in the West, we are accustomed to attributing to the title Buddha, if not the very special qualities of divinity, at least something very close to it. For all intents and purposes, the Buddha has become god-like. Indeed across much of South East Asia Shakyamuni has been virtually deified, with huge gilded statues in Buddhist temples, and since it was this form of Buddhism that was first encountered and described by western travellers, this sense if deification very much colours the western response to the word Buddha. It is certainly fundamental in my personal response.
It therefore comes a ssomething of a shock when we first encounter the central teaching of the Lotus Sutra and of Nichiren Buddhism, which is that Buddhahood, or the Buddha Nature as it is often called, is not a quality possessed only by one very special man in history, or even by a handful of special men down the centuries. Buddhahood we are told, is a potential inherent in everyone, everyone without exception. Part of our essential humanity. Whether we accept it or not, whether we believe it or not, or have the slightest interest in understanding the implications of it, Buddhism argues that we all have that potential in our lives. Everyoner you sit beside on the train, or ride up the escalator with, the man you buy your newspaper from, all the colleagues you encounter on a daily basis at work, those you like and those you don't!
The Buddha nature we are told is a universal quality, that we can all learn to draw upon or to harness in our daily lives.
Well that is aundoubtedly a huge, life-changing idea isn't it? Nothing less than a revolution in the spiritual history of mankind.
And we gon on to look at the implications of that idea in the next episode.
Thanks for reading to here. It's much appreciated. Hope you are enjoying it enough to tell other people about it.
Best wishes,
William
We ended the last session talking about the importance of establishing a steady, regular daily practice, because it is that structure, that discipline if you like, that steady progression towards the positive that enables us to become more capable, more effective, more contributing, in all the multiple, overlapping roles that we all have to fulfil, as parents and as partners, as teachers and colleagues at work and as friends at play. And of course as responsible people living in society. And one must add, with a greater sense of well-being; a claim that is amply borne out in the vast body of social research we now have on what kinds of things contribute to a stable sense of well-being. It's clear that our awareness of our own improved self confidence and our own increased ability to contribute to others, both play play a huge role in what constitutes happiness in this life.
We all want fundamentally to be capable people, in all the roles we inhabit. No one wants ever to be thought incapable!!
As we've seen, Buddhism chooses to call that resilient, life-enhancing inner strength that we learn how to grow, Buddhahood. And it chooses to call the confident awareness of its existence enlightenment. Those are of course unusual and infrequently used words in our western vocabulary, but when it comes down to it, they are just names! We shouldn't allow their unusual-ness and unfamiliarity to deflect us the central fact that the qualities that they represent are not in any way other-worldly or esoteric; they are demonstrably part of our everyday, down-to-earth reality. But before we dip into someof the important and immensely revealing social research I've mentioned, let's briefly tackle this central concept of Buddhahood.
So, what do we really mean by Buddhahood? I don't think we'll be able to squeeze the whole of the answer to that question into this episode, but we'll get a fair way.
So we are wholly accustomed in the western world to thinking of the ' the Buddha ' as being the great historical figure of Shakyamuni. There have of course been many other men who have been given the title Buddha down the intervening centuries, but when we attach that definite article, we are undoubtedly referring to Shakyamuni himself. As we discussed earlier, he made no claims to divinity or to divine inspiration during his long lifetime. Indeed he specifically forbade his followers from making any such connection. However it is unquestionably the case that in western minds he clearly occupies a place alongside the other great founders of religions such as jesus and Mohammed, who did of course claim a divine connection. Indeed that was the very basis of their life on this Earth, they claimed to be the only channel through which God's or Allah's purpose was transmitted to mankind.
As a result of this parallel status, if I may put it that way, in the West, we are accustomed to attributing to the title Buddha, if not the very special qualities of divinity, at least something very close to it. For all intents and purposes, the Buddha has become god-like. Indeed across much of South East Asia Shakyamuni has been virtually deified, with huge gilded statues in Buddhist temples, and since it was this form of Buddhism that was first encountered and described by western travellers, this sense if deification very much colours the western response to the word Buddha. It is certainly fundamental in my personal response.
It therefore comes a ssomething of a shock when we first encounter the central teaching of the Lotus Sutra and of Nichiren Buddhism, which is that Buddhahood, or the Buddha Nature as it is often called, is not a quality possessed only by one very special man in history, or even by a handful of special men down the centuries. Buddhahood we are told, is a potential inherent in everyone, everyone without exception. Part of our essential humanity. Whether we accept it or not, whether we believe it or not, or have the slightest interest in understanding the implications of it, Buddhism argues that we all have that potential in our lives. Everyoner you sit beside on the train, or ride up the escalator with, the man you buy your newspaper from, all the colleagues you encounter on a daily basis at work, those you like and those you don't!
The Buddha nature we are told is a universal quality, that we can all learn to draw upon or to harness in our daily lives.
Well that is aundoubtedly a huge, life-changing idea isn't it? Nothing less than a revolution in the spiritual history of mankind.
And we gon on to look at the implications of that idea in the next episode.
Thanks for reading to here. It's much appreciated. Hope you are enjoying it enough to tell other people about it.
Best wishes,
William
Saturday 9 August 2014
my buddhist blog number 54
Hi Everybody,
Here we are at chapter 8, Buddhism and Daily Life. And we dive straight in.
' One of the things that struck me most forciby when I first started to go to Buddhist discussion meetings and seminars, long before I felt ready to take up the practice myself in steady or meaningful way, was the immensely positive way that people spoke about the influence of the practice in their daily lives. So they would talk for example about having a clearer sense of purpose and direction, and a value structure that helped them to think constructively about their lives. They would frequently say that they felt more focused somehow, even if they couldn't define precisely why. Or that they no longer felt so blown off course by random events. Or that they could make choices and decisions more readily, because they had a clearer sense of who they were, and what they wanted in their lives. That's a lot of positives isn't it? Nothing remarkable or amazing. But a clear sense of ordinary people feeling in some way better about the way they were dealing with the relationships and the events in their lives and...and this is perhaps the most important thing...creating value as a result.
Moreover all the qualities they chose to mention, a clearer sense of, purpose and direction, more focus, more decisiveness, all appear prominently in the work of sociologists when they are writing about how we set about establishing a stable and consistent sense of well-being in our own lives, and equally important, how we contribute to the lives of those close around us.
To squeze it absolutely into a nutshell, Buddhism essentially presents the flow of life as a constant series of choices that come towards us, all of them lying somewhere on this continuum between the negative and the positive. So that every day, every week, countless times, we are called upon to make this choice between being positive, and value-creating, or being negative and in some measure...great or small...destructive. And what it seeks to do, as illustrated by those people at those meetings, is to bring to us a greater awareness, that in all those countless situations we are the ones making the choice. We have that capability. As I've mentioned several times, Buddhism reminds us that life doesn't just happen to us, as we so often tend to see it, we make it happen.
So instead of just drifting along, or being carried along by our habit energy, we steadily acquire a sense of shaping it, and directing its course. Or, as the people at those meetings described it, they had a clearer sense of values and purpose, and indeed stability, underlying the inevitable daily flux of events.
And all Buddhist practice, at its heart, is about that heightened awareness. About helping us to grow and nurture it, rather as we might grow and nurture a skill at sport, or at music, or some other skill, as a conscious act. That's the key point, as a conscious act, a conscious process of change, in which we invest real time and effort and energy in order to develop this awareness as an inner strength. Because it is that inner strength, that emotional muscle you might say, that enables us more often to recognise and reject the negativechoice, however persuasive and attractive it might be, and more and more often make the positive choice, however challenging it might be.
And of course it is only more often, rather than always. We all have negativity as a constant presence in our lives and it is prety skilled at slipping in under our defences.
But this is the key point to hang onto, it is that steady progression, that growth, towards the positive, that enables us to become more capable, more effective, more contributing, in all the multiple overlapping roles that we all have to fulfil, as parents and as partners, as teachers and colleagues at work and as friends at play. And of course, as responsible people living in society. which is essentially what we are talking about in this chapter. And have no doubt about it...we all want to be capable and contributing people, even those of us who would seem to be most dysfunctional in society. A Buddhist practice opens up that possibility.'
Enough to be going on with I think. The great news is that we are about half way through the book!!
Could I just remind you of that request I made a while back. If you like this blog, and think that it creates value, I would be over the moon with gratitude if you would bounce on the link to other people. Anybody. They don't have to be practising Buddhists, not at all. I like to think the values expressed would enhance anyone's life.
See you next time,
William
Here we are at chapter 8, Buddhism and Daily Life. And we dive straight in.
' One of the things that struck me most forciby when I first started to go to Buddhist discussion meetings and seminars, long before I felt ready to take up the practice myself in steady or meaningful way, was the immensely positive way that people spoke about the influence of the practice in their daily lives. So they would talk for example about having a clearer sense of purpose and direction, and a value structure that helped them to think constructively about their lives. They would frequently say that they felt more focused somehow, even if they couldn't define precisely why. Or that they no longer felt so blown off course by random events. Or that they could make choices and decisions more readily, because they had a clearer sense of who they were, and what they wanted in their lives. That's a lot of positives isn't it? Nothing remarkable or amazing. But a clear sense of ordinary people feeling in some way better about the way they were dealing with the relationships and the events in their lives and...and this is perhaps the most important thing...creating value as a result.
Moreover all the qualities they chose to mention, a clearer sense of, purpose and direction, more focus, more decisiveness, all appear prominently in the work of sociologists when they are writing about how we set about establishing a stable and consistent sense of well-being in our own lives, and equally important, how we contribute to the lives of those close around us.
To squeze it absolutely into a nutshell, Buddhism essentially presents the flow of life as a constant series of choices that come towards us, all of them lying somewhere on this continuum between the negative and the positive. So that every day, every week, countless times, we are called upon to make this choice between being positive, and value-creating, or being negative and in some measure...great or small...destructive. And what it seeks to do, as illustrated by those people at those meetings, is to bring to us a greater awareness, that in all those countless situations we are the ones making the choice. We have that capability. As I've mentioned several times, Buddhism reminds us that life doesn't just happen to us, as we so often tend to see it, we make it happen.
So instead of just drifting along, or being carried along by our habit energy, we steadily acquire a sense of shaping it, and directing its course. Or, as the people at those meetings described it, they had a clearer sense of values and purpose, and indeed stability, underlying the inevitable daily flux of events.
And all Buddhist practice, at its heart, is about that heightened awareness. About helping us to grow and nurture it, rather as we might grow and nurture a skill at sport, or at music, or some other skill, as a conscious act. That's the key point, as a conscious act, a conscious process of change, in which we invest real time and effort and energy in order to develop this awareness as an inner strength. Because it is that inner strength, that emotional muscle you might say, that enables us more often to recognise and reject the negativechoice, however persuasive and attractive it might be, and more and more often make the positive choice, however challenging it might be.
And of course it is only more often, rather than always. We all have negativity as a constant presence in our lives and it is prety skilled at slipping in under our defences.
But this is the key point to hang onto, it is that steady progression, that growth, towards the positive, that enables us to become more capable, more effective, more contributing, in all the multiple overlapping roles that we all have to fulfil, as parents and as partners, as teachers and colleagues at work and as friends at play. And of course, as responsible people living in society. which is essentially what we are talking about in this chapter. And have no doubt about it...we all want to be capable and contributing people, even those of us who would seem to be most dysfunctional in society. A Buddhist practice opens up that possibility.'
Enough to be going on with I think. The great news is that we are about half way through the book!!
Could I just remind you of that request I made a while back. If you like this blog, and think that it creates value, I would be over the moon with gratitude if you would bounce on the link to other people. Anybody. They don't have to be practising Buddhists, not at all. I like to think the values expressed would enhance anyone's life.
See you next time,
William
Wednesday 6 August 2014
my buddhist blog number 53
Hi Everybody,
Back from Lemnos. Had a great great time. And the great news is that my busted ankle hasn't forgotten how to windsurf. It was just so good to be on the water again. I find windsurfing is very much like skiing, all your focus is on the next turn, so that your mind is completely cleared of all the stuff that we have to deal with every day. In that sense it's very liberating. Very much living in the now. And i came back to find a really surprising e-mail from Tiziana, the very generous lady in Colombia who has done all the Spanish translations of the books. She sent me a clip from an article written by a Jesuit priest. And to my complete and utter surprise, he had quoted a passage from one of my books. It was a passage about the importance to our lives of our attitude towards pain and suffering. Do we allow it to knock us down, or do we try to grasp it as an opportunity for creating change. But isn't it interesting, that a Jesuit priest should choose to read, and actually quote from a book on Nichiren Buddhism. I find it absolutely fascinating.
Anyway, today's passage closes off chapter 7, which is about the practice, and it's headed Seeking actual proof.
' A Buddhist practice is too extensive, too multi-layered to admit of a meaniungful summing up. As the late historian and philosopher Arnold Toynbee, who was deeply interested in Buddhist teachings has expressed it,
' The Buddhist analysis of the dynamics of life is more detailed and subtle than any western analysis I know of.'
But if I had to isolate a single thought that conveys the essence of its meaning and purpose, it would be perhaps that it enables us to understand altogether more clearly and more vividly, that life doesn't just happen to us, we make it happen. This combination of discipline and self-belief that lie at its heart, help us to summon up the determination and the effort and perseverance that can be truly life-changing, both for ourselves and for those around us.
But it's crucially important to add, that at no stage are we asked to accept the benefits of the practice that we have been talking about, as a matter of blind faith. From the outset Nichiren Buddhism asks us to regard actual, demonstrable proof of the benefits or the effects of the practice as the crucial test of its validity. Indeed the term ' actual proof ' is used to make this point clear, and if you think about it even for a moment, it is the fundamental question isn't it? Does it work? Does it genuinely help us with things like overcoming our problems and facing up to our challenges? Does it enhance our daily lives? Does it help us to live in a more positive, value-creating way despite all the difficulties we are bound to encounter as human beings? Those are the kinds of questions that this practice invites you to ask. As i've said, it requires nothing that might be described as blind faith. It does require the commitment and the determination in order to give it a reasonable chance to bring about change in your life.
And if i look back, that was certainly my own position all thos eyears ago, hanging on to that key question does it work? And in answerinng it I would say that you take note of the doubts and the misgivings that undoubtedly arise, particularly in the early days, but they can arise at any time. Why not?And you ask questions and read more widely in order to seek some resolution of them. But in the final analysis, it will not in my view be what you read, or what you are told about Buddhism that will convince you of its value, although of course they both have an important role to play, particularly at the outset.
In the end, it has to be the gradual accumulation of your own experience that prove to you that it makes sense in terms of your own life. Or not indeed. Both options are clearly valid. The practice is too demanding to be continued on the basis of what somebody else tells you about it. The deepening belief and the joy, in the life-changing power of a Buddhist practice have to come...can only come, from within. '
That's chapter 7 under our belt. Next time chapter 8. Buddhism and Daily Life.
see you then.
Best wishes,
William
Good to be back.
Back from Lemnos. Had a great great time. And the great news is that my busted ankle hasn't forgotten how to windsurf. It was just so good to be on the water again. I find windsurfing is very much like skiing, all your focus is on the next turn, so that your mind is completely cleared of all the stuff that we have to deal with every day. In that sense it's very liberating. Very much living in the now. And i came back to find a really surprising e-mail from Tiziana, the very generous lady in Colombia who has done all the Spanish translations of the books. She sent me a clip from an article written by a Jesuit priest. And to my complete and utter surprise, he had quoted a passage from one of my books. It was a passage about the importance to our lives of our attitude towards pain and suffering. Do we allow it to knock us down, or do we try to grasp it as an opportunity for creating change. But isn't it interesting, that a Jesuit priest should choose to read, and actually quote from a book on Nichiren Buddhism. I find it absolutely fascinating.
Anyway, today's passage closes off chapter 7, which is about the practice, and it's headed Seeking actual proof.
' A Buddhist practice is too extensive, too multi-layered to admit of a meaniungful summing up. As the late historian and philosopher Arnold Toynbee, who was deeply interested in Buddhist teachings has expressed it,
' The Buddhist analysis of the dynamics of life is more detailed and subtle than any western analysis I know of.'
But if I had to isolate a single thought that conveys the essence of its meaning and purpose, it would be perhaps that it enables us to understand altogether more clearly and more vividly, that life doesn't just happen to us, we make it happen. This combination of discipline and self-belief that lie at its heart, help us to summon up the determination and the effort and perseverance that can be truly life-changing, both for ourselves and for those around us.
But it's crucially important to add, that at no stage are we asked to accept the benefits of the practice that we have been talking about, as a matter of blind faith. From the outset Nichiren Buddhism asks us to regard actual, demonstrable proof of the benefits or the effects of the practice as the crucial test of its validity. Indeed the term ' actual proof ' is used to make this point clear, and if you think about it even for a moment, it is the fundamental question isn't it? Does it work? Does it genuinely help us with things like overcoming our problems and facing up to our challenges? Does it enhance our daily lives? Does it help us to live in a more positive, value-creating way despite all the difficulties we are bound to encounter as human beings? Those are the kinds of questions that this practice invites you to ask. As i've said, it requires nothing that might be described as blind faith. It does require the commitment and the determination in order to give it a reasonable chance to bring about change in your life.
And if i look back, that was certainly my own position all thos eyears ago, hanging on to that key question does it work? And in answerinng it I would say that you take note of the doubts and the misgivings that undoubtedly arise, particularly in the early days, but they can arise at any time. Why not?And you ask questions and read more widely in order to seek some resolution of them. But in the final analysis, it will not in my view be what you read, or what you are told about Buddhism that will convince you of its value, although of course they both have an important role to play, particularly at the outset.
In the end, it has to be the gradual accumulation of your own experience that prove to you that it makes sense in terms of your own life. Or not indeed. Both options are clearly valid. The practice is too demanding to be continued on the basis of what somebody else tells you about it. The deepening belief and the joy, in the life-changing power of a Buddhist practice have to come...can only come, from within. '
That's chapter 7 under our belt. Next time chapter 8. Buddhism and Daily Life.
see you then.
Best wishes,
William
Good to be back.
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