Hi Everybody,
I missed the second postingthis past week. Been particularly busy, finishing a script and lo and behold I've started another book. Came to me in the middle of the night... theidea that is...and it's always tricky starting. your brain keeps presenting different alternatives, and you just have to stick with one that seems promising and get on with it. I often have in mind that metaphor that is so frequently used to describe sculptors at work. They are faced with a block of stone, and somewhere locked inside it is the shape or the image that they set out to release. Anyway, we've just started Chapter Nine, Buddhism and Negativity, and we were talking last time about the increasing clarity of view that the practice can bring. That's where we pick up the story.
' There can be a profound change too in terms of hopes and ambitions and expectations, what we are prepared to demand from our lives. It's frequently the case for example that we have allowed ourselves to make huge compromises, to come to terms with a situation or a set of circumstances, despite the fact that deep down we know that the situation is unsatisfactory, or even the cause of a great deal of stress or unhappiness in our lives. It might be a job that offers no real opportunity for our talents, or for advancement, a relationship that we have neglected, or a family situation tha thas become filled with conflict. Through fear or apathy or lack of courage, or simply because we can't think how to initiate change without causing a rupture, we swallow it, we learn to live with these sorts of situations dominating our lives, often for year after year.
As we all know few things are quite as difficult as bringing about real, enduring change in our behaviour or attitudes. it has taken a lifetime to build them up. So mit's bound to take real energy and determination and courage to set out to change them. Above all perhaps we need hope, a real sense that things can be changed. And that is precisely the role that the Buddhist practice can play. One of the statements most commonly made about it for example, and one that embedded itself in my mind very early on in practice, was that when you are faced with a profoundly difficult situation, and have no real idea where to turn, when you start to chant about it, as if out of nowhere...comes hope.
Of course it isn't out of nowhere, it's from within. And it does indeed come when you disengage yourself from the immediate situation or crisis, and just allow yourself the space to chant and to rethink. And so often it delivers to us the initial energy and the courage that we need to to take decisive action to begin that process of change.'
That's it for today.
Hope it helps.
And if you think anybody else might be interested, bouncing it on, or giving somebody the blog addres would be fantastically gratefully received. Every little helps as Tesco keeps reminding us!
See you next time.
William
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