Hi Everybody,
Well Xmas has simply flown by, and I'm sitting here with bright spring-like sunshine streaming through my windows. On the run in Richmond Park with Gatsby this morning it was too hot for a jacket!! And I had an immensely encouraging email from someone who said they'd received a copy of TCFB for xmas and they were already half way through it...with great pleasure! So that's worth an exclamation mark isn't it? perhaps 2!! Anyway, we're galloping through this chapter on Approaching the Practice, and we've looked at the three pillars of chanting and study and taking action. and we've talked about Buddhism not presenting us with a set of prescribed behaviours, or a morality, and we're diving into the meaning of the central Nichiren mantra, nam myoho renge kyo. That's where we pick up the narrative thread.
' I don't think we should be surprised or taken aback if we find some of these issues elusive and difficult to grasp when we first encounter this practice, and indeed, throughout our practice. Why shouldn't it be difficult? It's a huge and many-layered explanation of the reality of life. And as we have said so often, Buddhism is daily life, and since life is infinitely complex, Buddhism will inevitably reflect that complexity.
In my own case I have to say , I certainly did find it difficult. It was one thing comin gto understand many of the values that Buddhism embraces, and appreciating just how valuable they could be close to, in terms of human relationships, and further afiled perhaps, in terms of how society functions. It was quite another to commit to the chanting a strange mantra, perhpas an hour or more a day. Did I really want to do that? A mantra moreover that carries with it a whole bundle of meanings and associations and implications that are to a large extent closed off from everyday experience and derived from a quite different cultural tradition. That was quite a struggle.
I started chanting for two principal reasonds, and I'm sure my experience is by no means uncommon. The people I met who were practicing were to be admired in many ways; positive, compassionate, socially responsible, always constructive in their aims and endeavours. Always supportive of others. But it seemed to me that there was only one way of coming to understand the true value of Nichiren Buddhism in my daily life, and that was to allow it into my life.
I have been chanting on a daily basis ever since!
That's it for today.
I'll be back on the turn of the year on Saturday.
I wish everybody a really creative and fulfilling year of life to come.
William
PS TCFB is available on Amazon in paperback and as a download on Kindle.
Monday 28 December 2015
Thursday 17 December 2015
my buddhist blog number 116
Hi Everybody,
Hope all is well with you.We're in the middle of the chapter that introduces all the key elements of the daily practice. Since the chantingof the phrase nam myoho renge kyo is central to the practice and the process of change, where does it come from, and what does it mean?
Most of this phrase or mantra comes from the Lotus Sutra itself. Myoho renge kyo is the title of the Lotus Sutra as written in classical Japanese. To be precise it is written in the Chinese pictograms that the Japanese adopted as their own, in order to create their own written language. The five characters used to write this phrase mean literally, ' the Mystic law of the Lotus Sutra.' The word mystic does not mean mysterious. Rather it conveys the sense of the ultimate or highest teaching that hasn't previously been revealed.
The key word Nam which is placed in front of the title words is what you might call the committal word. It comes from the ancient language of Sanskrit and means, among several other things, ' to devote one's life to.' So a straightforward literal translation Nam myoho renge kyo might be, ' I devote my life to the mystic law of the Lotus Sutra.' But that is really just the beginning. many volumes have been written to explain the depths of meaning locked up in this mantra. That is partly because, in the Buddhist tradition, the title given to each sutra is seen to be immensely important, and is considred to embody the entire teaching that it contains. As Nichiren Daishonin explains to us in one of his letters, using the analogy of the name of japan,
' Included within the two characters representing Japan is all that is within the country's sixty six provinces; the people and the animals, the rice paddies and the other fields, those of high and low status, the nobles and the commoners...similarly included within the title or daimoku of Nam myoho renge kyo is the entire sutra consisting of of all eight volumes, twenty eight chapters, and 69,384 characters without the omission of a single character...'
Moreover, since Chinese is an incomparably concise language, in which each character can be used to express an immense range of different though related meanings, these 5 basic characters combine to convey a veritable universe of odeas. In very much the same way that in the world of physics for example, the simple-seeming equation e=mc2, sums up within its five characters the complex relationship between energy and matter across the entire vastness of the universe.
But neither of these partial explanations can begin to explain the depth of meaning that Nichiren himself ascribes to this phrase. He describes it as nothing less than the Universal Law of Life, that expresses within its brief compass the realtionship between human life and the entire environment within which life is lived. It sums up within itslef he says, nothin less than the ' wisdom of all the Buddhas.'
Shakyamuni himself expresses something very close to that in the Lotus Sutra itself when he writes that this Law,
'can only be understood and shared between Buddhas.'
It is crucially important I think to make clear that that description is not referring to some sort of exclusivity. Far from it, since the whole purpose of the Lotus Sutra is to convey far and wide to all humanity the depth and breadth of Shakyamuni's hard-won enlightenment, to enable people, all people, to build better lives for themselves. It is simply expressing the crucial point that the intellect, and words and explanations can only take you so far along the path of understanding. You have to practice Buddhism, and experience to some extent its power and potential to change your life from the inside, before you truly begin to understand. Just as of course, you actually have to bite into the stawberry yourself, before you can begin to understand what it tastes like!
That's enough for today.
Thanks for reading this far.
Hope to see you next time around.
Best wishes,
William
Hope all is well with you.We're in the middle of the chapter that introduces all the key elements of the daily practice. Since the chantingof the phrase nam myoho renge kyo is central to the practice and the process of change, where does it come from, and what does it mean?
Most of this phrase or mantra comes from the Lotus Sutra itself. Myoho renge kyo is the title of the Lotus Sutra as written in classical Japanese. To be precise it is written in the Chinese pictograms that the Japanese adopted as their own, in order to create their own written language. The five characters used to write this phrase mean literally, ' the Mystic law of the Lotus Sutra.' The word mystic does not mean mysterious. Rather it conveys the sense of the ultimate or highest teaching that hasn't previously been revealed.
The key word Nam which is placed in front of the title words is what you might call the committal word. It comes from the ancient language of Sanskrit and means, among several other things, ' to devote one's life to.' So a straightforward literal translation Nam myoho renge kyo might be, ' I devote my life to the mystic law of the Lotus Sutra.' But that is really just the beginning. many volumes have been written to explain the depths of meaning locked up in this mantra. That is partly because, in the Buddhist tradition, the title given to each sutra is seen to be immensely important, and is considred to embody the entire teaching that it contains. As Nichiren Daishonin explains to us in one of his letters, using the analogy of the name of japan,
' Included within the two characters representing Japan is all that is within the country's sixty six provinces; the people and the animals, the rice paddies and the other fields, those of high and low status, the nobles and the commoners...similarly included within the title or daimoku of Nam myoho renge kyo is the entire sutra consisting of of all eight volumes, twenty eight chapters, and 69,384 characters without the omission of a single character...'
Moreover, since Chinese is an incomparably concise language, in which each character can be used to express an immense range of different though related meanings, these 5 basic characters combine to convey a veritable universe of odeas. In very much the same way that in the world of physics for example, the simple-seeming equation e=mc2, sums up within its five characters the complex relationship between energy and matter across the entire vastness of the universe.
But neither of these partial explanations can begin to explain the depth of meaning that Nichiren himself ascribes to this phrase. He describes it as nothing less than the Universal Law of Life, that expresses within its brief compass the realtionship between human life and the entire environment within which life is lived. It sums up within itslef he says, nothin less than the ' wisdom of all the Buddhas.'
Shakyamuni himself expresses something very close to that in the Lotus Sutra itself when he writes that this Law,
'can only be understood and shared between Buddhas.'
It is crucially important I think to make clear that that description is not referring to some sort of exclusivity. Far from it, since the whole purpose of the Lotus Sutra is to convey far and wide to all humanity the depth and breadth of Shakyamuni's hard-won enlightenment, to enable people, all people, to build better lives for themselves. It is simply expressing the crucial point that the intellect, and words and explanations can only take you so far along the path of understanding. You have to practice Buddhism, and experience to some extent its power and potential to change your life from the inside, before you truly begin to understand. Just as of course, you actually have to bite into the stawberry yourself, before you can begin to understand what it tastes like!
That's enough for today.
Thanks for reading this far.
Hope to see you next time around.
Best wishes,
William
Friday 11 December 2015
my buddhist blog number 115
Hi Everybody,
115!! Thats a big number. I started this blog just about a year ago in the hope that it would create value. I've been totally surprised by the number of people who have got in touch to say how much they've enjoyed it, and in some cases, actually learned from it! That is really pleasing. It takes about a year to write a book and about another year to find some sort of audience, and then hopefully readers continue to find the book and hopefully get some value from it for several years afterwards. I have been immensely fortunate in that all the books seem to continue to find readers who value them for years afterwards, in English and Spanish, and in the case of The Reluctant Buddhist in Italian. I have acquired so many good friends in Italy. When I visited Trets this summer, on a beautiful hot September day, I was utterly surprised to be embraced and kissed even by a couple of Italian ladies who were complete strangers....apparently because they had read TRB or Il Budista Rilutante as it is in Italian. So you see, there are multiple benefits from writing books on obscure subjects!!!
But back to this key chapter on Approaching the Practice, and we're at quite a small sub paragraph labelled..not a morality. Small, but it makes a key point that we need to bear in mind.
We should not forget the point that we have touched upon previously, namely that Buddhism does not depend for its moral force on a prescribed set of behaviours. It relies rather on the power of this inner transformation, on people learning how to accept responsibility for their own lives and their own actions. This clearly has the potential for far reaching effects, not solely on the person at the centre, but on the community he or she inhabits.
The process begins of course with the individual. It all begins with the personal determination...not wish but determination... to live one's life, to the very best of one's ability that is, within the orbit of a buddhist set of values and principles. That's the starting point. But the effect of the changes we make in our thinking and in our behaviour inevitably extends way beyond our own life, in an ever-widening series of ripples, to change the environment within which we live our lives. The individual change that is, begins to affect the social environment that makes up our daily life. And as it does so, and we begin to see the benefits of that change in terms of value-creation and in terms of more productive relationships. So it strengthens the desire to maintain these values and principles. It sets up if you like a virtuous circle in our life; the stronger our practice, the greater the effect on our behaviour, and the greater the effect on our environment, the stronger our practice.
As I said earlier, a small but important point!
Thats all for now. Next tiem we get onto the meaning ogf nam myoho renge kyo.
Best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon ( great xmas present!!!) and on Kindle.
115!! Thats a big number. I started this blog just about a year ago in the hope that it would create value. I've been totally surprised by the number of people who have got in touch to say how much they've enjoyed it, and in some cases, actually learned from it! That is really pleasing. It takes about a year to write a book and about another year to find some sort of audience, and then hopefully readers continue to find the book and hopefully get some value from it for several years afterwards. I have been immensely fortunate in that all the books seem to continue to find readers who value them for years afterwards, in English and Spanish, and in the case of The Reluctant Buddhist in Italian. I have acquired so many good friends in Italy. When I visited Trets this summer, on a beautiful hot September day, I was utterly surprised to be embraced and kissed even by a couple of Italian ladies who were complete strangers....apparently because they had read TRB or Il Budista Rilutante as it is in Italian. So you see, there are multiple benefits from writing books on obscure subjects!!!
But back to this key chapter on Approaching the Practice, and we're at quite a small sub paragraph labelled..not a morality. Small, but it makes a key point that we need to bear in mind.
We should not forget the point that we have touched upon previously, namely that Buddhism does not depend for its moral force on a prescribed set of behaviours. It relies rather on the power of this inner transformation, on people learning how to accept responsibility for their own lives and their own actions. This clearly has the potential for far reaching effects, not solely on the person at the centre, but on the community he or she inhabits.
The process begins of course with the individual. It all begins with the personal determination...not wish but determination... to live one's life, to the very best of one's ability that is, within the orbit of a buddhist set of values and principles. That's the starting point. But the effect of the changes we make in our thinking and in our behaviour inevitably extends way beyond our own life, in an ever-widening series of ripples, to change the environment within which we live our lives. The individual change that is, begins to affect the social environment that makes up our daily life. And as it does so, and we begin to see the benefits of that change in terms of value-creation and in terms of more productive relationships. So it strengthens the desire to maintain these values and principles. It sets up if you like a virtuous circle in our life; the stronger our practice, the greater the effect on our behaviour, and the greater the effect on our environment, the stronger our practice.
As I said earlier, a small but important point!
Thats all for now. Next tiem we get onto the meaning ogf nam myoho renge kyo.
Best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon ( great xmas present!!!) and on Kindle.
Sunday 6 December 2015
My Buddhist blog number 114
Hi Everybody,
Good day for blogging! One of those grey windy wintry days outside. I can hear the wind blustering up against the windows. Been for my run in the park with Gatsby, so I can settle down over a nice warm keyboard without any sense of guilt! One of the chapters in the new book is about how we need to be careful about the new norm of spending hours and hours sitting still in front of our screens. We need to build in breaks to get the body moving. Any movement, even just a walk to the water dispenser is good.
Anyway, we're in the middle of this chapter on Approaching the Practice.We've looked at chanting. We move on to study and taking action.
The second major element in the practice is study. Studying a wide range of materials from the extant letters and other writings of Nichiren Daishonin himself, to commentaries by Buddhist scholars, and accounts by individual Buddhists on the ways in which their practice has enhanced their lives. There is a huge and varied abundance of material because it is such a broad ranging philosophy which touches upon every aspect of our daily lives. Nichiren as we have seen makes no bones about the importance of study. Indeed he goes so far as to say, 'Exert yourself in the two ways of practice and study, because without practice and study there is no Buddhism.'
But that having been said, this is not in any way an intellectual or an academic practice. The study is not about acquiring knowledge as an end in itself. It is entirely about deepening our understanding of the principles that underlie the practice, so that we get better at living them, at making them work in our daily lives, at manifesting them in our behaviour.
Taking action is the third pillar of the practice; the effort and the struggle to fold Buddhist principles and values into the warp and weft of our daily lives so that they are lived rather than just perceived or understood. And let's be clear, that is a daily struggle. We have to work at it. Few things are more difficult to change than ingrained patterns of thought and behaviour, of which we have often become almst completely unaware, so much have they become a part of us, driven perhaps by anger or selfishness or a basic lack of concern for other people's needs. That is part of all our experience.
The discipline of the Buddhist practice drives what might be called a constant inner re-appraisal, an inner transformation of our own life, a real growth in self-knowledge. Out of that grows a fundamental respect for the lives of all others. It's not of course a one-way journey. There can be set-backs and regressions as well as advances. It is very much a living dynamic process. But even so there is no doubt that this change comes to have a profound effect upon the way you handle relationships and encounters with everyone you meet; a greater openness for example, an altogether warmer, wider, welcoming generosity towards other people. I have no doubt that one of the greatest benefits of the Buddhist practice in my personal life for example, has been this transformation in the way I experience relation ships at every level.'
That's it for today.
Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading this far.
Hope to see you next time.
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon or as a download from Kindle.
Good day for blogging! One of those grey windy wintry days outside. I can hear the wind blustering up against the windows. Been for my run in the park with Gatsby, so I can settle down over a nice warm keyboard without any sense of guilt! One of the chapters in the new book is about how we need to be careful about the new norm of spending hours and hours sitting still in front of our screens. We need to build in breaks to get the body moving. Any movement, even just a walk to the water dispenser is good.
Anyway, we're in the middle of this chapter on Approaching the Practice.We've looked at chanting. We move on to study and taking action.
The second major element in the practice is study. Studying a wide range of materials from the extant letters and other writings of Nichiren Daishonin himself, to commentaries by Buddhist scholars, and accounts by individual Buddhists on the ways in which their practice has enhanced their lives. There is a huge and varied abundance of material because it is such a broad ranging philosophy which touches upon every aspect of our daily lives. Nichiren as we have seen makes no bones about the importance of study. Indeed he goes so far as to say, 'Exert yourself in the two ways of practice and study, because without practice and study there is no Buddhism.'
But that having been said, this is not in any way an intellectual or an academic practice. The study is not about acquiring knowledge as an end in itself. It is entirely about deepening our understanding of the principles that underlie the practice, so that we get better at living them, at making them work in our daily lives, at manifesting them in our behaviour.
Taking action is the third pillar of the practice; the effort and the struggle to fold Buddhist principles and values into the warp and weft of our daily lives so that they are lived rather than just perceived or understood. And let's be clear, that is a daily struggle. We have to work at it. Few things are more difficult to change than ingrained patterns of thought and behaviour, of which we have often become almst completely unaware, so much have they become a part of us, driven perhaps by anger or selfishness or a basic lack of concern for other people's needs. That is part of all our experience.
The discipline of the Buddhist practice drives what might be called a constant inner re-appraisal, an inner transformation of our own life, a real growth in self-knowledge. Out of that grows a fundamental respect for the lives of all others. It's not of course a one-way journey. There can be set-backs and regressions as well as advances. It is very much a living dynamic process. But even so there is no doubt that this change comes to have a profound effect upon the way you handle relationships and encounters with everyone you meet; a greater openness for example, an altogether warmer, wider, welcoming generosity towards other people. I have no doubt that one of the greatest benefits of the Buddhist practice in my personal life for example, has been this transformation in the way I experience relation ships at every level.'
That's it for today.
Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading this far.
Hope to see you next time.
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon or as a download from Kindle.
Wednesday 2 December 2015
MY BUDDHIST BLOG NUMBER 113
Hi Everybody,
So we're talking about the basic practice and we're in the middle of a discussion on the role of chanting.
Chanting to achieve things in one's life, including material things, runs strongly counter to the widely held perception of Buddhism that it is essentially about renunciation, about giving up worldly things as a necessary step on the road to achieving a higher spiritual condition. Nichiren Buddhism however teaches that renunciation, giving up things, of itself, brings no benefits. It argues rather that desire is basic to all human life and that as long as there is life there will be the instinctive desire in the hearts of men and women to make the most of that life, which inevitably means to love and to want and to have.
Nichiren saw with great clarity that little was to be gained from people expending huge amounts of thought and time and energy seeking to extinguish a force that lay right at the core of their lives. On the contrary infinitely more is to be achieved by accepting it as an ordinary part of everyone's humanity, and harnessing it, as a powerful engine for individual growth and change.
But let's be clear, we are not talking about a solely rational or intellectual process. In many ways the effects of chanting on a regular, committed, daily basis, are beyond the reach of the intellect alone. It does change profoundly your view of what is valuable and meaningful in life.
The ultimate goal of the Nichiren Buddhist is a world made up of people and communities that live in peace one with another. We chant for it, and work for it on a daily basis.
That brings us to the end of the passage on chanting. Lets leave it there.
Next time around we pick up the theme of study and its role in the practice.
Hope to see you next time.
William
So we're talking about the basic practice and we're in the middle of a discussion on the role of chanting.
Chanting to achieve things in one's life, including material things, runs strongly counter to the widely held perception of Buddhism that it is essentially about renunciation, about giving up worldly things as a necessary step on the road to achieving a higher spiritual condition. Nichiren Buddhism however teaches that renunciation, giving up things, of itself, brings no benefits. It argues rather that desire is basic to all human life and that as long as there is life there will be the instinctive desire in the hearts of men and women to make the most of that life, which inevitably means to love and to want and to have.
Nichiren saw with great clarity that little was to be gained from people expending huge amounts of thought and time and energy seeking to extinguish a force that lay right at the core of their lives. On the contrary infinitely more is to be achieved by accepting it as an ordinary part of everyone's humanity, and harnessing it, as a powerful engine for individual growth and change.
But let's be clear, we are not talking about a solely rational or intellectual process. In many ways the effects of chanting on a regular, committed, daily basis, are beyond the reach of the intellect alone. It does change profoundly your view of what is valuable and meaningful in life.
The ultimate goal of the Nichiren Buddhist is a world made up of people and communities that live in peace one with another. We chant for it, and work for it on a daily basis.
That brings us to the end of the passage on chanting. Lets leave it there.
Next time around we pick up the theme of study and its role in the practice.
Hope to see you next time.
William
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