my buddhist blog number 43

Hi Everybody,

I got soaked walking in Richmond Park with Gatsby this morning. Just throwing it down. It's still a great way to start the day though. An hours daimoku followed by an hour jogging through the trees, before |I get back to a cup of coffee and the keyboard. I am so full of gratitude to have such a life.

We are right at the tail end of chapter 6, Buddhism and Ethics. Just a couple of paragraphs to polish off before we start chapter 7, Buddhism and Practice.

So the last episode finished on the idea of choice...' A Buddhist practice is aimed at helping us to be more aware and thus to recognise what is going on in any encounter or relationship more rapidly, and so make the positive choiuce more often. ' The text goes on...

' You will have noticed that we've been bumping into that word choice throughout the whole line of argument, and it's bound to occur again and again on this journey, because it is crucial to an understanding of what Buddhism is about, and indeed to an understanding of what it really means when it talks about happiness or well-being in this life. It has often been said that there can be no happiness without hope or optimism, and no hope or optimism really without freedom of choice...coupled we would hasten to add, to that profound sense of personal responsibility we've been talking about . The two have to be inseparable.

And in a sense that is the bottom line to this entire discussion we've been having about Buddhism and ethics. That is the basic Buddhist approach to all relationships of whatever kind, right across the filed of human experience. It is based solidly on that central, life-changing perception all those years ago by Shakyamuni, that every human being without exception, has this profound potential of Buddhahood within their lives. And the whole purpose of the daily practice is in a sense to sharpen of that potential in ourselves ...and others.

And that's where we go next. To de-mystify that word practice. '

Hope to see you there. Nice short one this time around.
Keep well. Keep smiling.
William