Hi Everybody,
Back from the beautiful blue and gold of the Mediterranean to a somewhat more autumnal England. Had a great time I must say. But back to work. This passage follows on directly from the previous one about the central message of Shakyamuni expressed in the Lotus Sutra. This accumulated wisdom about learning how to create for oneself a better and a happier life no matter what challenges or problems we all encounter every day of our lives, continues to be about the present and not about the past. It continues to demonstate its direct immediacy and relevance despite the vast changes mankind has lived through in every area of our lives; immense immeasurable changes.
But those are of course external changes, whereas our inner humanity remains unchanged. We still find ourselves blocked and limited by all kinds of disabling doubts and fears. Fears of so many things; fear of inadequacy, fear of rejection, fear of failure and of loss and much else. We still find ourselves knocked down and disabled by problems and difficulties that sometimes seem so overwhelming that we don't know where to turn. We still find it difficult to acknowledge let alone to draw on our inner resources of courage and hope and and optimism to make the very most of our lives.
Indeed some of Buddhism's central teachings about how to recognise and draw upon our inner resources and so overcome many of the negative impulses and responses that we experience, have been taken up and used on a regular basis by some of today's leading psychologists in helping people cope with severe and persistent depression and sadness.
So Buddhism continues to touch and change people's inner lives, in the West now as well as in the east, in increasing numbers. If we ask the question why that is, there are of course many threads to the answer. But undoubtedly one of them will be that there is something immensely powerful, immensely empowering about this central idea that comes from Shakyamuni and Nichiren, about learning how to take hold of our lives in a rational way and moving them towards the positive end of the spectrum. We all want to know how to do that. And that really brings us back to this question of faith in Buddhism? What does it mean? In some ways it is the most important question of all. And that's where we go next time.
Hope to see you then.
Best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and as a download on Kindle.
Tuesday 27 September 2016
Wednesday 7 September 2016
my buddhist blog number 147
Hi Everybody,
I'm about to go off to Antibes again I'm utterly delighted to say...I love the place...so I thought I'd get in at least one more episode before I go. we're in the middle of a discussion about the nature of Shakyamuni's enlightenment and the we've reached a point where the implications of that enlightenment are expressed in the Lotus Sutra.
The Lotus of the title is seen to be a powerful and many-layered metaphor for many things, but undoubtedly one of the most important, the very heart of the message that it seeks to transmit, is that the lotus is a plant that grows ina muddy swampy environment, and yet produces flowers of extraordinary beauty. Thus it is symbolic of the immense potential that can be revealed, created, brought out of the ordinary, muddled, mundane circumstances of our daily lives, no matter how difficult and challenging the initial circumstances of that life may be.
Thus in the Lotus Sutra Shakyamun essentially turned the religious world on its head. At a time when people saw themselves as being limited and hemmed in by powerful external controlling concepts such as destiny and the will of the gods, Shakyamuni taught them that was not the case, that was not an accurate representation of the reality of human life. Everyone he said could come to understand that man carried his own destiny in his own hands, that our lives are our own to shape and to make. That we have the resources within us, and the freedom to make our own choices, to take control of our lives and move them in the direction we wish to go. Provided only that we accept full responsibility for the choices that we make and their implicatiopns for others around us. That concern for others is the very basis of Buddhist morality.
It was unquestionably a revolutionary teaching then, which is one of the reasons it spread like a bushfire across south East Asia, but what is also unquestioned I suggest, if you give it a moments thought, is that it remains pretty revolutionary today.
Enough for today I think.
Hope to do one more episode before I go.
All my best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on amazon and as a download on kindle.
I'm about to go off to Antibes again I'm utterly delighted to say...I love the place...so I thought I'd get in at least one more episode before I go. we're in the middle of a discussion about the nature of Shakyamuni's enlightenment and the we've reached a point where the implications of that enlightenment are expressed in the Lotus Sutra.
The Lotus of the title is seen to be a powerful and many-layered metaphor for many things, but undoubtedly one of the most important, the very heart of the message that it seeks to transmit, is that the lotus is a plant that grows ina muddy swampy environment, and yet produces flowers of extraordinary beauty. Thus it is symbolic of the immense potential that can be revealed, created, brought out of the ordinary, muddled, mundane circumstances of our daily lives, no matter how difficult and challenging the initial circumstances of that life may be.
Thus in the Lotus Sutra Shakyamun essentially turned the religious world on its head. At a time when people saw themselves as being limited and hemmed in by powerful external controlling concepts such as destiny and the will of the gods, Shakyamuni taught them that was not the case, that was not an accurate representation of the reality of human life. Everyone he said could come to understand that man carried his own destiny in his own hands, that our lives are our own to shape and to make. That we have the resources within us, and the freedom to make our own choices, to take control of our lives and move them in the direction we wish to go. Provided only that we accept full responsibility for the choices that we make and their implicatiopns for others around us. That concern for others is the very basis of Buddhist morality.
It was unquestionably a revolutionary teaching then, which is one of the reasons it spread like a bushfire across south East Asia, but what is also unquestioned I suggest, if you give it a moments thought, is that it remains pretty revolutionary today.
Enough for today I think.
Hope to do one more episode before I go.
All my best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on amazon and as a download on kindle.
Sunday 4 September 2016
my buddhist blog number 146
Hi Everybody,
had some real trouble getting here! Google Chrome seem to have made the old pathway I used via explorer no longer viable. I had to use the skills of my nerdy son Sebastian to get me to this familiar pro-forma that enables me to publish the blog. So much gratitude to him. And a new awareness that one can quite easily get mashed in the tech wars that clearly go on between these internet giants. Hmmm.
So where were we? We were trying to get a grip in Shakyamuni's enlightenment. To clear away some of that fog of mysticism and mythology to understand it more clearly. And we ended the last passage with an image of a Ghandi type figure, immensely approachable, immensely compassionate, surrounded by a crowd listening intently as he taught about a new kind of hope and a new kind of possibility for their lives. But what precisely was that new hope and that new possibility? It is expressed most completely and most powerfully in a teaching or a sutra called The Lotus Sutra. This was the mainspring of Shakyamuni's mission during the final phase of his long teaching life. It represents if you like the summit of that staircase of understanding up which he was steadily taking his followers. It is described as the core and essence of his life's work. The Lotus Sutra is the central text of Mahayana Buddhism, which embraces Nichiren Buddhism. It is a long involved work full of stories and parables which stands alongside the Bible and the Koran as one of the great religious texts of human history. As Daisaku Ikeda, one of the greatest authorities on the Lotus Sutra describes it, at the very heart of the philosophy it teaches is the perception that ...' the inner determination of an individual can transform everything, it gives ultimate expression to the infinite potential and dignity inherent in every human life. '
And Daisaku Ikeda, in his account of Shakyamuni's life gives us a compelling image of Shakyamuni's ordinary humanity when he writes, ' ...he was a man who, in almost astonishingly plain and unaffected language, employing anecdotes and analogies that could be comprehended by anyone, sought to awaken in each individual the spirit that dwells in the inner being of all people....When he speaks in his unassuming way to mankind, one catches within the clear and simple words echoes from another realm, that of the truly enlightened man who has contended with and overcome darkness in himself, and attained the final resolution of truth.'
It's a memorable image.
Enough for today.
Hope I don't have the same trouble navigating back here again for 147.
Best wishes,
William
The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and as a download on Kindle.
had some real trouble getting here! Google Chrome seem to have made the old pathway I used via explorer no longer viable. I had to use the skills of my nerdy son Sebastian to get me to this familiar pro-forma that enables me to publish the blog. So much gratitude to him. And a new awareness that one can quite easily get mashed in the tech wars that clearly go on between these internet giants. Hmmm.
So where were we? We were trying to get a grip in Shakyamuni's enlightenment. To clear away some of that fog of mysticism and mythology to understand it more clearly. And we ended the last passage with an image of a Ghandi type figure, immensely approachable, immensely compassionate, surrounded by a crowd listening intently as he taught about a new kind of hope and a new kind of possibility for their lives. But what precisely was that new hope and that new possibility? It is expressed most completely and most powerfully in a teaching or a sutra called The Lotus Sutra. This was the mainspring of Shakyamuni's mission during the final phase of his long teaching life. It represents if you like the summit of that staircase of understanding up which he was steadily taking his followers. It is described as the core and essence of his life's work. The Lotus Sutra is the central text of Mahayana Buddhism, which embraces Nichiren Buddhism. It is a long involved work full of stories and parables which stands alongside the Bible and the Koran as one of the great religious texts of human history. As Daisaku Ikeda, one of the greatest authorities on the Lotus Sutra describes it, at the very heart of the philosophy it teaches is the perception that ...' the inner determination of an individual can transform everything, it gives ultimate expression to the infinite potential and dignity inherent in every human life. '
And Daisaku Ikeda, in his account of Shakyamuni's life gives us a compelling image of Shakyamuni's ordinary humanity when he writes, ' ...he was a man who, in almost astonishingly plain and unaffected language, employing anecdotes and analogies that could be comprehended by anyone, sought to awaken in each individual the spirit that dwells in the inner being of all people....When he speaks in his unassuming way to mankind, one catches within the clear and simple words echoes from another realm, that of the truly enlightened man who has contended with and overcome darkness in himself, and attained the final resolution of truth.'
It's a memorable image.
Enough for today.
Hope I don't have the same trouble navigating back here again for 147.
Best wishes,
William
The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and as a download on Kindle.
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