Hi Everybody,
Just back from holiday in Antibes in the South of France, a beautiful little old town between Nice and Cannes, not posh or smart, just very ordinary. Ordinary except that was originally founded by the Greeks, and then taken over by the Romans and the old centre of the town dates back to the 18th century with narrow winding streets only a couple of metres wide, and old fortifications overlooking the sea, and there's a huge blue bay with the Cap D'Antibes at one end and the blue shadows of the Alpes Maritimes marching down to the sea at the other. So very ordinary, but kind of breathtaking. And I've been going there for about 30 odd years and my children learned to fish off the rocks there and grew up spending their long summer holidays at the house I owned there. When we go there now we practice with some local members and this time we went off with them to the European Centre at Trets, further down the coast close to Marseille. It turned out that we had the place to ourselves, so there we were chanting to our hearts content in the grand hall, and in came two ladies visiting from Italy. So we did gongyo together, and it was just a beautiful moment, and as we were talking afterwards it turned out that they had read Il Budista Rilutante ( the Italian version of The Reluctant Buddhist) and when they recognised me as the author they both threw their arms around me enthusiastically and kissed me. So thats how I went to Trets and got kissed by two strange Italian ladies!!
So we pick up today where we left off on episode 101, in the midle of the Chapter on the ten worlds. A concept that is central to Nichiren Buddhism, and we's looking at the mini portraits of the ten states of mind that Buddhism paints for us. Weve looked at Hell, Hunger, animality and Anger, so we're now onto the state that is labelled Humanity. And once again it describes a life state that we all immediately recognise, in the sense that it describes those periods, those moments, long or short, when we are quiet and calm and completely at peace with our lot. We like the life we have. So it is fundamentally a neutral state. Nothing has excited us, or upset us, or aroused a passionate or anxious response. It is sometimes called a state of rest because it is at least in part about recharging our batteries. So it is marked by all sorts of positive qualities such as reasonablenes and sound judgement and consideration for others. When you are in this life state it means that you might be actively seeking to achieve compromise rather than conflict, or you are putting the best positive gloss on circumstances rather than being critical, or you are prepared to be very supportive of other people's proposals. It's a very relaxed and positive place to be.
Is there a negative side to this life state? Well it is sometimes suggested that it might lead to a certain amount of apathy, revealed perhaps in the long-term acceptance of a basically unsatisfactory situation, or an unwillingness to make the effort to change it. The ten worlds of course are all about self awareness, knowing where are, recognising how we are behaving or responding in a particular situation, and once again Buddhism argues that it is the awareness of the nature of this life state that enables us to benefit from its positive qualities of compromise and sound judgment, and to avoid its dangers of accepting an unacceptable status quo.
That's it. Brief and to the point. Next time we move onto the life state that Buddhism calls rapture.
Hope to see you then.
Best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available from Amazon or a download on Kindle.
No comments:
Post a Comment