MY BUDDHIST BLOG NUMBER 52

Hi Everybody,
amazing day today. I was in the park by 7.30 jogging with Gatsby and already the sun was hot on my neck. Tomorrow, Lemnos and blue sky and blue sea and the whizz of a windsurfer. Can't wait. And happily today's theme is...action, taking the action.

' This is the esential third pillar of the practice, which anchors the chanting and the study and the basic values of the philosophy into the reality of every day. Taking the action, putting it into practice, the struggle some would say, to fold Buddhist principles and values completely into the fabric of our daily life, so that they are lived rather than just perceived or understood. It is simply but memorably illustrated in the example of cooking the rice. If you want to eat rice the story goes, you can prepare it, put it in the pot, and put the pot on the stove. Then you can go off and chant. You can chant until you are blue in the face but of course not a grain of rice will be cooked...until you take the action...until you get up off your knees and light the fire tha tis. So the chanting is the essential prelude, the summoning of the wisdom and the courage and the compassion and the life force, to enable you to take the right action to realise the change that you seek in your life.

And the reason why we might well use the word struggle in that list of action words above is because we are so often deeply involved in change; we're seeking to change and improve the things that don't work or that we don't like about our lives, and, as we all know, few things are more difficult to change than ingrained, often unconscious patterns of thought or behaviour. They might be driven, those patterns, by lack of awareness for example, or by habitual anger, or selfishness, or a basic lack of concern for other people's needs or views. That is part of all our experience. We are all aware of just how loudly our own needs or wishesspeak to us, over the concerns of others. What happens is that the Buddhist practice, which has compassion and altruism at its very heart drives the inner transformation towards a fundamental, deeply-felt respect for the lives of all others. It's not of course a one-way journey, far from it. One step forwards two steps back is a common experience, but as we continue with the practice, so we get better at living it out in our lives. '

And it works I promise you. From my heart. I've moved a long long way in my personal journey away from a basically abrasive, selfish, self-seeking William towards a generous and compassionate and altruistic and value creating one, and the impact on my profound sesne of well-being and being at ease with myself and my life has been immense. Immense.

See you next time.
William
The Case for Buddhism is available from Amazon and on Kindle.