Hi Everybody,
This is the last episode on this chapter devoted to the principle of the ten worlds, or ten life states, and it brings us right to the nub of the agument, the key implication of this principle in our daily lives. So it goes...
' Indeed the key implication is unmistakeable. It is that Buddhahood can only exist in the presence of the other nine life states, it can only find expression that is, in the lives and behaviour of ordinary people. Us. What that means is that all the lower worlds we've talked about, of Hell, Hunger, Anger and animality are also permanently part of our lives. We can't eliminate them or drive them out in some way. They are part of everyone's life. What we need to do on this journey of building a better life for ourselves and those around us is to the reality of their presence in our life, and set about transforming them through the increased self-awareness and the determination that the practice build up, to limit their negative impact upon our lives. And this is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of Nichiren Buddhism, that it enables us to take any part of our life about which we feel unhappy or even guilty or ashamed and set about transmuting it, through the practice, into a source of value. Nothing has to be given up. Nothing that can exist in the context of our lives is too difficult to challenge.
The overwhelming message therefore is one of hope and optimism. This is part and parcel of what we mean when we talk about taking responsibility for our life. One interpretation of that word is precisely respond-ability. That is to say, we can learn how to respond to people and situations and events in a more value-creating way. That is why so many people describe the effect of their practice as enabling. They come to feel that it helps them to take more control of their lives, instead of feeling at a loss, or even overwhelmed.
In a sense it is a restatement of the analogy of the weightlifter. It is a fact of life that we can't develop stronger muscles by lifting lighter and lighter weights. From a Buddhist standpoint it is equally clear that we cannot grow our iner strength and resilience, those vital qualities, except by overcoming the biggest obstacles and challenges that life throws at us. The bigger the problem we overcome, the greater the resilience we develop. As Daisaku Ikeda has expressed it so clearly,
' True happiness is not the absence of suffering. you can't have day after day of clear skies....Happiness does not mean having a life free from all difficulties, but that whatever difficulties arise, without being shaken in the least, you can summon up the unflinching courage and conviction to fight and overcome them. '
Speaking personally, I find that I am often ' shaken ' by some challenges that arise, so I think we might make that phrase, ' without being shaken in the least,' an optional extra. The key thing is that we try to summon up the courage and the conviction to overcome them.
Ok that's all for today.
Thank you for reading this far.
Hope to see you next time.
Best wishes,
William
The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and as a download on Kindle.
Tuesday 20 October 2015
Tuesday 13 October 2015
my buddhist blog number 107
Hi Everybody,
We're coming to the end of the chapter on the ten worlds or the ten life states, and we've come in a sense to the genuine $64000 question, how does the Buddhist description of these life states match up against the reality of our lives. It doesn't take much self analysis I suggest, to recall or to recognise in our daily experience the life states they describe.We've all experienced at some time or another the pain and greyness of hell state. We've all experienced the frustrations of not getting what we want in hunger state, or the sense of deep personal fulfilment that comes when we've really been able to help someone else achieve something they seek, or through a personal difficulty. So I would argue, they certainly match up to our common experience, and there are some general points that are worth bearing in mind.
Thus we move from one life state to another with great rapidity and with complete freedom depending on what's going on in our heads and in our environment from moment to moment. Nichiren Buddhism chooses to describe that fluency of movement by saying that each life state contains the potential of all the others. We can immediately see the validity of that idea if we think of incidents in our daily lives, and the very purpose of the the concept of the ten worlds is to raise our general level of self awareness. Indeed it has been argues that if we weren't offered some such concept then we would have to invent one to explain the immensely changeable...and even contradictory...feelings we demonstrate or experience every single day of our lives. Of course we're not accustomed to calling these variable and fluctuating states of mind, life states or worlds, as Buddhism describes them. Indeed we take them so much for granted that we may not dignify them with any name at all. But do we experience them? Yes indeed. And we recognise them rapidly enough when we have them pointed out to us.
The nub of the argument.
If we are prepared to accept that argument, and we do need to give it some careful thought, then what follows from it is very important indeed in terms of our understanding of Nichiren Buddhism. Since it brings us to the central promise made by Nichiren, namely that it is possible for us to experience the life state of Buddhahood, in this lifetime, whatever situation our life happens to be in at any given moment. we have within us that is, the potential to move from the near despair of Hell say, to the compassion of Bodhisattva, or the hope and optimism and profound sense of capability and well-being of Buddhahood.
This is the basis for the fundamental argument that has already been touched upon more than once, namely the normality of Buddhahood. It's not in any way a superhuman life state, but a supremely human one. Shakyamuni and Nichiren were ordinary men who nevertheless attained this life state during their everyday lives on Earth. Thus the great promise at the heart of Mahayana and Nichiren Buddhism is that this Buddha Nature is not some remote and inaccessible goal, it is the immediate earthly purpose of our daily practice. However hard it is for us to accept that premise, and of course, it is hard.
Enough for one day.
Back next time to wrap up this key chapter.
Thank you for reading this far. I'm very grateful.
Hope to see you next time.
Best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and as a download on Kindle.
We're coming to the end of the chapter on the ten worlds or the ten life states, and we've come in a sense to the genuine $64000 question, how does the Buddhist description of these life states match up against the reality of our lives. It doesn't take much self analysis I suggest, to recall or to recognise in our daily experience the life states they describe.We've all experienced at some time or another the pain and greyness of hell state. We've all experienced the frustrations of not getting what we want in hunger state, or the sense of deep personal fulfilment that comes when we've really been able to help someone else achieve something they seek, or through a personal difficulty. So I would argue, they certainly match up to our common experience, and there are some general points that are worth bearing in mind.
Thus we move from one life state to another with great rapidity and with complete freedom depending on what's going on in our heads and in our environment from moment to moment. Nichiren Buddhism chooses to describe that fluency of movement by saying that each life state contains the potential of all the others. We can immediately see the validity of that idea if we think of incidents in our daily lives, and the very purpose of the the concept of the ten worlds is to raise our general level of self awareness. Indeed it has been argues that if we weren't offered some such concept then we would have to invent one to explain the immensely changeable...and even contradictory...feelings we demonstrate or experience every single day of our lives. Of course we're not accustomed to calling these variable and fluctuating states of mind, life states or worlds, as Buddhism describes them. Indeed we take them so much for granted that we may not dignify them with any name at all. But do we experience them? Yes indeed. And we recognise them rapidly enough when we have them pointed out to us.
The nub of the argument.
If we are prepared to accept that argument, and we do need to give it some careful thought, then what follows from it is very important indeed in terms of our understanding of Nichiren Buddhism. Since it brings us to the central promise made by Nichiren, namely that it is possible for us to experience the life state of Buddhahood, in this lifetime, whatever situation our life happens to be in at any given moment. we have within us that is, the potential to move from the near despair of Hell say, to the compassion of Bodhisattva, or the hope and optimism and profound sense of capability and well-being of Buddhahood.
This is the basis for the fundamental argument that has already been touched upon more than once, namely the normality of Buddhahood. It's not in any way a superhuman life state, but a supremely human one. Shakyamuni and Nichiren were ordinary men who nevertheless attained this life state during their everyday lives on Earth. Thus the great promise at the heart of Mahayana and Nichiren Buddhism is that this Buddha Nature is not some remote and inaccessible goal, it is the immediate earthly purpose of our daily practice. However hard it is for us to accept that premise, and of course, it is hard.
Enough for one day.
Back next time to wrap up this key chapter.
Thank you for reading this far. I'm very grateful.
Hope to see you next time.
Best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and as a download on Kindle.
Sunday 4 October 2015
MY BUDDHIST BLOG NUMBER 106
Hi Everybody,
Hope all is well with you. We're having the most wonderful autumnal days here in Kew, blue skies, warm sunshine even though the sun is so much lower in the sky, leaves just beginning to darken and fall. Running in the park with my dog Gatsby in the mornings is just a joy. He seems to like it too!! Right moving on, were drawing to the end of this key chapter on the ten worlds or the ten states of life. Last time we talked about the powerfully value-creating life state that Buddhism calls bodhisattva. Today we move on to the life state of buddhahood. Don't worry about the names. Focus on what lies behind them. Just to round off the section on bodhisattva, which is essentially about caring for others, Buddhism in its wisdom warns us against the danger of being self-sacrificial, in the sense of neglecting one's own well-being. The care of others it teaches, is best delivered by someone who remains strongly aware of their own basic needs, and who takes care of their own welfare. In order to give to others most effectively it argues, we have to develop and make sure we maintain our own strong and resilient life state.
That brings us to waht Buddhism describes as the highest life state of which human beings are capable. It is, as we've already discussed, a name or a title that is overlaid in the West by a huge amoun tf misconception and misunderstanding, so that it is very difficult for us to believe that it is a life state that can be attained by ordinary people, like us, going about their ordinary daily lives, which might be called perhaps the What me? syndrome. But we shouldn't allow that little local difficulty tp put us off. The word Buddha by the way comes from a Sanskrit root that means among other things to awaken, or to see deeply, and is used in Buddhsim to describe soemone who is awakened to the ultimate truth of life.
It was Nichiren, through his prolonged study of Buddhist writings and commentaries back through the centuries who brought Buddhism back down to earth so to speak. He made it clear that Shakyamuni was at all times an ordinary man, albeit a man of extraordinary wisdom and insight. Indeed the real significance of his life, Nichiren wrote, lay in his ' behaviour as a human being.' Not notice, as a divine or semi-divine figure, but as an ordinary human being.
Nichiren repeatedly makes clear in his writings that Shakyamuni's awakening to the truth of life was not in any way a superhuman state, in some way elevated above ordinary human life. Nor was it a transcendental state, some place of heavenly peace and tranquillity, cut off from the down-to-earth reality of daily life. This is the key understanding that Nichiren went to great lengths to bring to us, throughout his teaching life. Thus Buddhahood, or the Buddha nature as it is described in Mahayana Buddhism ( which embraces Nichiren Buddhism ) is not presented as an elevation of some kind, a higher plane or level of life onto which we might step, as if we were leaving behind our ordinary lives. It is rather a deeper and richer understanding of the mainstream of our life, as it already is. So that everything we are involved in, the ordinary things, the boring and mundane things, even the suffering and the struggling things, we can learn to experience as part of, our on-going well-being.
And of course, it's not a destination, somewhere we arrive, as if it were a sort of railway station. It is rather a path that we take up and continue to travel along, trying to understand and experience this deeper sense of the wholeness and richness of our lives. Indeed as one Buddhist text puts it, attributed to Shakyamuni himself,
' There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.'
Well that's plenty enough for one day I think.
Hope you find it interesting. Its quite difficult creating a synopsis on a subject such as Buddhahood which has been the subject of countless volumes.
Hope to see you next time.
Hope all is well with you. We're having the most wonderful autumnal days here in Kew, blue skies, warm sunshine even though the sun is so much lower in the sky, leaves just beginning to darken and fall. Running in the park with my dog Gatsby in the mornings is just a joy. He seems to like it too!! Right moving on, were drawing to the end of this key chapter on the ten worlds or the ten states of life. Last time we talked about the powerfully value-creating life state that Buddhism calls bodhisattva. Today we move on to the life state of buddhahood. Don't worry about the names. Focus on what lies behind them. Just to round off the section on bodhisattva, which is essentially about caring for others, Buddhism in its wisdom warns us against the danger of being self-sacrificial, in the sense of neglecting one's own well-being. The care of others it teaches, is best delivered by someone who remains strongly aware of their own basic needs, and who takes care of their own welfare. In order to give to others most effectively it argues, we have to develop and make sure we maintain our own strong and resilient life state.
That brings us to waht Buddhism describes as the highest life state of which human beings are capable. It is, as we've already discussed, a name or a title that is overlaid in the West by a huge amoun tf misconception and misunderstanding, so that it is very difficult for us to believe that it is a life state that can be attained by ordinary people, like us, going about their ordinary daily lives, which might be called perhaps the What me? syndrome. But we shouldn't allow that little local difficulty tp put us off. The word Buddha by the way comes from a Sanskrit root that means among other things to awaken, or to see deeply, and is used in Buddhsim to describe soemone who is awakened to the ultimate truth of life.
It was Nichiren, through his prolonged study of Buddhist writings and commentaries back through the centuries who brought Buddhism back down to earth so to speak. He made it clear that Shakyamuni was at all times an ordinary man, albeit a man of extraordinary wisdom and insight. Indeed the real significance of his life, Nichiren wrote, lay in his ' behaviour as a human being.' Not notice, as a divine or semi-divine figure, but as an ordinary human being.
Nichiren repeatedly makes clear in his writings that Shakyamuni's awakening to the truth of life was not in any way a superhuman state, in some way elevated above ordinary human life. Nor was it a transcendental state, some place of heavenly peace and tranquillity, cut off from the down-to-earth reality of daily life. This is the key understanding that Nichiren went to great lengths to bring to us, throughout his teaching life. Thus Buddhahood, or the Buddha nature as it is described in Mahayana Buddhism ( which embraces Nichiren Buddhism ) is not presented as an elevation of some kind, a higher plane or level of life onto which we might step, as if we were leaving behind our ordinary lives. It is rather a deeper and richer understanding of the mainstream of our life, as it already is. So that everything we are involved in, the ordinary things, the boring and mundane things, even the suffering and the struggling things, we can learn to experience as part of, our on-going well-being.
And of course, it's not a destination, somewhere we arrive, as if it were a sort of railway station. It is rather a path that we take up and continue to travel along, trying to understand and experience this deeper sense of the wholeness and richness of our lives. Indeed as one Buddhist text puts it, attributed to Shakyamuni himself,
' There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.'
Well that's plenty enough for one day I think.
Hope you find it interesting. Its quite difficult creating a synopsis on a subject such as Buddhahood which has been the subject of countless volumes.
Hope to see you next time.
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