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.
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