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.
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