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.
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