Hi Everybody,
I'm in something of a hurry. I'm packing to leave for the South of France at the crack of dawn tomorrow, but I wanted to get this episode off before I leave. So if you don't mind I will dive straight into it. We're talking about the Buddhist concept of connectedness. We've looked at the theory for a bit, and last time we asked the question, but what difference to our actual behaviour.
Good question. Indeed it might be perhaps the most important question we can ask ourselves, given that there is so much conflict in society and between ethnic groups. What real difference we need to ask, does all that theoretical stuff make to the way we live our daily lives? What's wrong you might ask with seeing ourselves, as we commonly do, stopping at our skin, quite separate and distinct from everything else on the planet? What practical difference can it make? Science of course, in presenting us with the clearest possible evidence of our deep inrerconectedness doesn't have to take an ethical or a social stance. But Buddhism most certainly does, and thefundamental Buddhist answer to that question would be that everything in our behaviour is driven by our perceptions. Thus a gross misperception, that arises directly from the narrowness of our view, strictly limited by what can perceive with our senses, can lead to grossly inappropriate behaviour. As I have expressed it elsewhere,
' Close to it simply means 'me' and ' you.' That's probably easy enough to handle. Further afield it begins to mean 'us' and ' them.' They are different from us and it begins to get more difficult. You may well be a mild-mannered and altruistc individual who gets on with everybody, but it goes without saying that not everybody is. It doesn't take more than a brief look at human history, old and new, to see that the idea of separation, of them and us, of their lot and our lot, of white skins and brown skins, of Catholics and Protestants, of Christians and Muslims, lies at the root of everything from the brawling between different tribal groups of football fans outside the pub on a Saturday night, to the powerfully disruptive forces of racism, and extreme nationalism and religious fundamentalism. And unspeakable events like Rwanda. And Sebrenica. And Auschwitz.'
Those terrible names may come from a different time and a different space, but they are truly part of the heritage of every one of us. We can never escape from what they mean.
So the Buddhist answer to that first question rings out loud and clear, the difference it makes to us all is simply immense. Immense. There is no other word for it. As soon as we understand that everything in our behaviour is driven by our perceptions, then keeping those perceptions sharp and clear, and keeping our compassion alert and active becomes of the utmost importance to the way we encounter everything in our daily life. Are we creating value in this situation, or are we being carelessly destructive? Are we respecting the views and the concerns of others or are we carelessly trampling over them in pursuit of our own interests.
That clarity and that freshness are some of the benefits that flow from the discipline of the daily practice. That is one of its main functions, to keep that awareness and that compassion fresh and young and active, every single day.'
Right. Enough for today. I'm off on a weeks hols. And I have to say I think I deserve it. Been working very hard. Speak to you when I get back.
Best wishes,
William
The Case for Buddhism is available from Amazon and as a download from Kindle.
People tell me it's good value! Hope so.
Saturday 30 May 2015
Monday 25 May 2015
my budhist blog number 90
Hi Everybody,
I just want to say a huge thank you to all the people who've taken the trouble to read this blog, and all those people who've said some really encouraging things about the book, that it's interesting and even inspiring and hugely accessible and easy to read and immensely informative about both Buddhism and science.....and so on.....the sort of feedback that every writer would love to receive. So a zillion thank you's from my heart.
Right, well we're in the middle of this section about the fundamental Buddhist principle of the interconnectedness of all things, and we've just had that wonderful quote from that truly great Kenyan lady Wangerei Maathai in which she talks about all human beings who have ever lived on the planet coming from the same stem that originated in East Africa. That's where we pick it up.
' So that is the powerful bond that Buddhism and now modern science, ask us to understand, binds us all so closely to everyone on Earth. And remarkably it doesn't stop there. Because the very materials of which we are made connect us intimately to every rock, every planet, every galaxy spinning out ther eon the edge of darkness. We are that is made of the very same atoms and molecules. It is simply impossible to conceive how a young man livin gin Northern India all those years ago, and seeking desperately to understand the nature of reality, could possibly have perceived such a level of connectedness, but we are indeed, connected across the universe down to the level of the atom and the molecule.
' ...all matter is the same...the modern particle physicist explains to us,...the matter of ehich the stars are made is known to be the same as the matter on earth...there are the same kinds of atoms there as on earth. The same kinds of atoms appear to be in living creatures as in non-living creatures...'
And let's be clear what we have here. We have a radical modern theoretical physicist coming suprisingly, astoundingly close to the way in which fully 700 years earlier, the young Buddhist social revolutionary Nichiren Daishonin sought to transmit to us, Shakyamuni's understanding of of the closeness of our connection to everything in our environment. So he writes,
' Life at each moment encompasses the body and mind and self and environment of all sentient beings in the Ten Worlds as well as all insentient beings..including plants, sky, earth, and even the minutest particles of dust. Life at each moment permeates the entire realm of phenomena and is revealed in all phenomena..''
Body mind and self, sentient and insentient beings, and plants and sky and earth and dust. Nothing is excluded. Both Buddhism and science it would seem are at one in explaining to us that we live out our lives as part of a totally joined up world. And, I would argue, the more we can grasp and internalise that truth, the more profoundly it is likely to influence our behaviour.
But it poses a huge question for us...what difference does it make? And that might well be the most important question we can ask ourselves. What real difference does all that theoretical stuff make to our daily lives? '
And that's where we go next week to answer that question head on.
Thanks for reading. If you know anyone who might conceivably be interested in reading this you would be doing them a huge favour if you were to pass it on to them.
See you next time,
William
The book The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and Kindle.
I just want to say a huge thank you to all the people who've taken the trouble to read this blog, and all those people who've said some really encouraging things about the book, that it's interesting and even inspiring and hugely accessible and easy to read and immensely informative about both Buddhism and science.....and so on.....the sort of feedback that every writer would love to receive. So a zillion thank you's from my heart.
Right, well we're in the middle of this section about the fundamental Buddhist principle of the interconnectedness of all things, and we've just had that wonderful quote from that truly great Kenyan lady Wangerei Maathai in which she talks about all human beings who have ever lived on the planet coming from the same stem that originated in East Africa. That's where we pick it up.
' So that is the powerful bond that Buddhism and now modern science, ask us to understand, binds us all so closely to everyone on Earth. And remarkably it doesn't stop there. Because the very materials of which we are made connect us intimately to every rock, every planet, every galaxy spinning out ther eon the edge of darkness. We are that is made of the very same atoms and molecules. It is simply impossible to conceive how a young man livin gin Northern India all those years ago, and seeking desperately to understand the nature of reality, could possibly have perceived such a level of connectedness, but we are indeed, connected across the universe down to the level of the atom and the molecule.
' ...all matter is the same...the modern particle physicist explains to us,...the matter of ehich the stars are made is known to be the same as the matter on earth...there are the same kinds of atoms there as on earth. The same kinds of atoms appear to be in living creatures as in non-living creatures...'
And let's be clear what we have here. We have a radical modern theoretical physicist coming suprisingly, astoundingly close to the way in which fully 700 years earlier, the young Buddhist social revolutionary Nichiren Daishonin sought to transmit to us, Shakyamuni's understanding of of the closeness of our connection to everything in our environment. So he writes,
' Life at each moment encompasses the body and mind and self and environment of all sentient beings in the Ten Worlds as well as all insentient beings..including plants, sky, earth, and even the minutest particles of dust. Life at each moment permeates the entire realm of phenomena and is revealed in all phenomena..''
Body mind and self, sentient and insentient beings, and plants and sky and earth and dust. Nothing is excluded. Both Buddhism and science it would seem are at one in explaining to us that we live out our lives as part of a totally joined up world. And, I would argue, the more we can grasp and internalise that truth, the more profoundly it is likely to influence our behaviour.
But it poses a huge question for us...what difference does it make? And that might well be the most important question we can ask ourselves. What real difference does all that theoretical stuff make to our daily lives? '
And that's where we go next week to answer that question head on.
Thanks for reading. If you know anyone who might conceivably be interested in reading this you would be doing them a huge favour if you were to pass it on to them.
See you next time,
William
The book The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and Kindle.
Sunday 10 May 2015
my buddhist blog number 89
Hi Everybody,
I was invited yesterday to the first showingof a short film on dementia, directed as it happened by a Nichiren Buddhist, and with another member playing the lead ing role, so a very special event, and very moving. Couldn't hold back the tears. The film underlined the immense impact that two key qualities that lie at the heart of a Buddhist practice can have on our relationships, respect for others, and empathy, seeking to understand where they are in their lives and how our words and actions can create the most value for them in that situation. You don't have to be a Buddhist of course to have respect and empathy, but it helps!
Back to this episode. It follows on directly from the last. I realise as I write these blogs that the lines of argument in the books I write are so closely constructed that it helps to read the previous episode before reading the current one...but I can't keep asking people to do that can I? I just have to go on thinking it!! Anyway here we go,
'...it's about balance. We are so accustomed in the West, with out our essentially Judaeo-Christian cultural heritage to separate God and Caesar, State and Church, to understand spiritual aspirations as being different from, separate from, and often more worthy somehow than material ones. Buddhism argues that both have an essential role to play in the complex spectrum of human well-being. There's nothing about the one that makes it inherently more worthy than the other. It's up to us to establish the balance in our lives that enables us to live the most creative and fulfilling lives for ourselves, and the most supportive of others. It's all part of that being wholly responsible for our lives that we have discussed at some length in this book. And of course it takes us back to the respect and empathy I mentioned at the beginning of this episode.
A crucial part of the down-to-erath practicality that Buddhism brings into our lives is coming to understand...with our whole lives...the profound interconnectedness of all things. We may not be able to see it directly with our eyes of course, or experience it with our senses, but Buddhism, and now of course modern science, ask us to understand that everything but everything in existence, is interconnected and interdependent at the most profound level. Just as, on the surface of things, the island seems to be completely separate from the mainland, but go deeper, to the sea bed, and it is seen to be part of the whole. Or just as each wave on the surface of the sea may seem separate and distinct, but each one is embedded in the great body of the ocean. But those of course are just metaphores to illustrate the idea. The fact is that this deeply rooted Buddhist view, which goes back directly to Shakyamuni's great struggle all those years ago, to achieve a deeper understanding of the nature of reality, is now echoed in very precise terms by what modern science has to tell us.
Our DNA for example, the blueprint for making us who we are, we now know connects us to every othe rliving thing. Not just to other humans, but to every living entity tha thas ever existed on the face of the planet. That is an extraordinary mind-blowing idea, most passionately expressed as we saw in an earlier chapter, by one of today's greatest philosopher-scientists, Daniel Dennet; ' ...you share a common ancestor,' he tells us, ' with every chimpanzee, every worm, every blade of grass, every redwood tree.'
And the great Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Laureate, Wangerie Maathai, reminds us of something that we could never perceive just with our senses, namely that all human beings who walk the planet, are all from the same family stem;
' So far, ' she writes, ' all the information we have suggests that we come from somewhere within this part of the world, in East Africa, and that of course for many people must be surprising because I think we are so used to being divided along ethnic lines, or along racial lines, and so we look all the time for reasons to be different from each other. So it must be surprising for some of us to realise that what differentiates us is usually very superficial, like the colour of our eyes, or the texture of our hair. But we are essentially all from the same stem, from the same origin. So I think that as we continue to understand ourselves and appreciate each other, and especially when we get to understand that we all come from the same origin, we will shed a lot of the prejudices that we have harboured in the past.'
Let's sincerely hope so. '
Enought food for thought. I can't thank you enough for reading thus far. I'm just so grateful.
Best wishes,
William
The Case for Buddhism is available in paperback on Amazon, and as a download on Kindle.
I was invited yesterday to the first showingof a short film on dementia, directed as it happened by a Nichiren Buddhist, and with another member playing the lead ing role, so a very special event, and very moving. Couldn't hold back the tears. The film underlined the immense impact that two key qualities that lie at the heart of a Buddhist practice can have on our relationships, respect for others, and empathy, seeking to understand where they are in their lives and how our words and actions can create the most value for them in that situation. You don't have to be a Buddhist of course to have respect and empathy, but it helps!
Back to this episode. It follows on directly from the last. I realise as I write these blogs that the lines of argument in the books I write are so closely constructed that it helps to read the previous episode before reading the current one...but I can't keep asking people to do that can I? I just have to go on thinking it!! Anyway here we go,
'...it's about balance. We are so accustomed in the West, with out our essentially Judaeo-Christian cultural heritage to separate God and Caesar, State and Church, to understand spiritual aspirations as being different from, separate from, and often more worthy somehow than material ones. Buddhism argues that both have an essential role to play in the complex spectrum of human well-being. There's nothing about the one that makes it inherently more worthy than the other. It's up to us to establish the balance in our lives that enables us to live the most creative and fulfilling lives for ourselves, and the most supportive of others. It's all part of that being wholly responsible for our lives that we have discussed at some length in this book. And of course it takes us back to the respect and empathy I mentioned at the beginning of this episode.
A crucial part of the down-to-erath practicality that Buddhism brings into our lives is coming to understand...with our whole lives...the profound interconnectedness of all things. We may not be able to see it directly with our eyes of course, or experience it with our senses, but Buddhism, and now of course modern science, ask us to understand that everything but everything in existence, is interconnected and interdependent at the most profound level. Just as, on the surface of things, the island seems to be completely separate from the mainland, but go deeper, to the sea bed, and it is seen to be part of the whole. Or just as each wave on the surface of the sea may seem separate and distinct, but each one is embedded in the great body of the ocean. But those of course are just metaphores to illustrate the idea. The fact is that this deeply rooted Buddhist view, which goes back directly to Shakyamuni's great struggle all those years ago, to achieve a deeper understanding of the nature of reality, is now echoed in very precise terms by what modern science has to tell us.
Our DNA for example, the blueprint for making us who we are, we now know connects us to every othe rliving thing. Not just to other humans, but to every living entity tha thas ever existed on the face of the planet. That is an extraordinary mind-blowing idea, most passionately expressed as we saw in an earlier chapter, by one of today's greatest philosopher-scientists, Daniel Dennet; ' ...you share a common ancestor,' he tells us, ' with every chimpanzee, every worm, every blade of grass, every redwood tree.'
And the great Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Laureate, Wangerie Maathai, reminds us of something that we could never perceive just with our senses, namely that all human beings who walk the planet, are all from the same family stem;
' So far, ' she writes, ' all the information we have suggests that we come from somewhere within this part of the world, in East Africa, and that of course for many people must be surprising because I think we are so used to being divided along ethnic lines, or along racial lines, and so we look all the time for reasons to be different from each other. So it must be surprising for some of us to realise that what differentiates us is usually very superficial, like the colour of our eyes, or the texture of our hair. But we are essentially all from the same stem, from the same origin. So I think that as we continue to understand ourselves and appreciate each other, and especially when we get to understand that we all come from the same origin, we will shed a lot of the prejudices that we have harboured in the past.'
Let's sincerely hope so. '
Enought food for thought. I can't thank you enough for reading thus far. I'm just so grateful.
Best wishes,
William
The Case for Buddhism is available in paperback on Amazon, and as a download on Kindle.
Sunday 3 May 2015
my buddhist blog number 88
Hi Everybody,
Hope things are OK with you. Spring is always such a wonderfully promising part of the year isn't it?
Longer days. More sunshine. Flowers everywhere. Birds flocking to the bird table. And my writing's going well too, so I'm in a very good place. Hope you are too. This episode follows directly on from the last, I was talking about my deep scepticism when I first started to practice, and how scepticism, in the sense of leading you to ask questions in order to establish a deeper understanding, is a source of strength rather weakness.
' But if I try to cast myself back into that situation there was also I now realise, an inner resolution. I was determined that once I had set out down this somewhat surprising road, I would continue on the journey until I was quite sure, one way or the other, about the value of the practice in my daily life. It was easy enough for people to say to me, ' Buddhism is daily life,' the question was did it actually work at that level? Could it make a fundamental difference to the way I viewed the mundane stuff of every day?
And if you think about it, that is the acid test isn't it? That's what it boils down to. It's not the theory that is going to change our lives, it's the practice. How do Buddhist values and principles affect the way we perceive and the way we respond to the constant stream of events and encounters that make up the daily-ness of all our lives, in all its unexpected, challenging, chaotic, sometimes uplifting, often frustrating detail? The answer can be expressed in many ways of course, but one that makes most sense to me is that Buddhism is both inspirational, and intensely practical. Inspirational in that it delivers to us a view of ordinary human life that is always hopeful and uplifting, and immensely positive and value-creating. At the same time it is intensely practical in that it delivers an utterly down-to-earth, feet-on-the-ground strategy for living with the stuff of everyday.
It does make a profound difference when you are aware that Buddhism is not about demonstrating allegiance to some external, divinely-inspired set of rules and commandments. It is really about allegiance to one's better self, and one's concern for, and responsibility towards others. That clearly has a powerful impact on how we relate to ourselves, our sense of self-worth if you like, and how we relate to everyone we encounter, not just those who are close, family and friends and colleagues, but those we just happen to bump into on a casual or infrequent basis. Literally everyone.
It does make a profound difference that the Buddhist view of humanity is genuinely all inclusive. No one is excluded, or sits on the other side of some boundary. It seeks constantly to break down the barriers between self and others. In that sense it embraces all of humanity, and transcends race and ethnic and religious groupings, and nationalities and cultures. One could certainly argue that living as we do on an increasingly crowded planet, with even its climatic systems and its resources , including the very basics of water and land, under immense presuure, never have we been in greater need of such an all-embracing view of mankind. The celebrated American economist Jeffrey Sachs has put it for us so powerfully,
' ...Our challenge, our generation's unique challenge, is learning how to live peacefully and sustainably, in an extraordinarily crowded world.'
As to being utterly practical and down -to-earth, Buddhism as we've seen is a man-made religion, so it's not in any way focused on some heavenly hereafter, which is consequent in some way on the nature of the daily life we have lived here. Buddhism is that daily life, so it's concerned above all with that very here and now. It seeks therefore to engender and nurture, wholly practical and down-to-earth qualities that we need every day, such as the courage to face up to problems rather than sweeping them under the carpet, and resilience and perseverance in the face of the inevitable setbacks and profound losses we all encounter. And the compassion and awareness that enables us to be there for our neighbour whenever he needs help. '
That's plenty enough for today I think. Probably a bit too much!
Hope you manged to get to the end.
Hope your spring is a beautiful and surprising one.
See you next time,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available as a paperback on Amazon and a download on Kindle, and I have to say I am immensely grateful at so many of the generous things people have said about it.
Hope things are OK with you. Spring is always such a wonderfully promising part of the year isn't it?
Longer days. More sunshine. Flowers everywhere. Birds flocking to the bird table. And my writing's going well too, so I'm in a very good place. Hope you are too. This episode follows directly on from the last, I was talking about my deep scepticism when I first started to practice, and how scepticism, in the sense of leading you to ask questions in order to establish a deeper understanding, is a source of strength rather weakness.
' But if I try to cast myself back into that situation there was also I now realise, an inner resolution. I was determined that once I had set out down this somewhat surprising road, I would continue on the journey until I was quite sure, one way or the other, about the value of the practice in my daily life. It was easy enough for people to say to me, ' Buddhism is daily life,' the question was did it actually work at that level? Could it make a fundamental difference to the way I viewed the mundane stuff of every day?
And if you think about it, that is the acid test isn't it? That's what it boils down to. It's not the theory that is going to change our lives, it's the practice. How do Buddhist values and principles affect the way we perceive and the way we respond to the constant stream of events and encounters that make up the daily-ness of all our lives, in all its unexpected, challenging, chaotic, sometimes uplifting, often frustrating detail? The answer can be expressed in many ways of course, but one that makes most sense to me is that Buddhism is both inspirational, and intensely practical. Inspirational in that it delivers to us a view of ordinary human life that is always hopeful and uplifting, and immensely positive and value-creating. At the same time it is intensely practical in that it delivers an utterly down-to-earth, feet-on-the-ground strategy for living with the stuff of everyday.
It does make a profound difference when you are aware that Buddhism is not about demonstrating allegiance to some external, divinely-inspired set of rules and commandments. It is really about allegiance to one's better self, and one's concern for, and responsibility towards others. That clearly has a powerful impact on how we relate to ourselves, our sense of self-worth if you like, and how we relate to everyone we encounter, not just those who are close, family and friends and colleagues, but those we just happen to bump into on a casual or infrequent basis. Literally everyone.
It does make a profound difference that the Buddhist view of humanity is genuinely all inclusive. No one is excluded, or sits on the other side of some boundary. It seeks constantly to break down the barriers between self and others. In that sense it embraces all of humanity, and transcends race and ethnic and religious groupings, and nationalities and cultures. One could certainly argue that living as we do on an increasingly crowded planet, with even its climatic systems and its resources , including the very basics of water and land, under immense presuure, never have we been in greater need of such an all-embracing view of mankind. The celebrated American economist Jeffrey Sachs has put it for us so powerfully,
' ...Our challenge, our generation's unique challenge, is learning how to live peacefully and sustainably, in an extraordinarily crowded world.'
As to being utterly practical and down -to-earth, Buddhism as we've seen is a man-made religion, so it's not in any way focused on some heavenly hereafter, which is consequent in some way on the nature of the daily life we have lived here. Buddhism is that daily life, so it's concerned above all with that very here and now. It seeks therefore to engender and nurture, wholly practical and down-to-earth qualities that we need every day, such as the courage to face up to problems rather than sweeping them under the carpet, and resilience and perseverance in the face of the inevitable setbacks and profound losses we all encounter. And the compassion and awareness that enables us to be there for our neighbour whenever he needs help. '
That's plenty enough for today I think. Probably a bit too much!
Hope you manged to get to the end.
Hope your spring is a beautiful and surprising one.
See you next time,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available as a paperback on Amazon and a download on Kindle, and I have to say I am immensely grateful at so many of the generous things people have said about it.
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