my buddhist blog number 67

Hi Everybody,

We've been talking about the ways in which we influence, create even, our own environment. Obviously there's going to be the odd hiccup and break in continuity when a book is split up into segments like this, but nothing major I hope, to detract from the meaning of any episode. This one is best read as a straight follow-on from 65, but it makes complete sense on its own. Ok so here we go.

' The Buddhist argument is that this understanding that we do, in large measure, create our own environment, essentially holds good even when it is scaled up to the level of society, and beyond, to the society of nations. Although at first glance that might seem a somewhat difficult position to accept, we only have to cast around in recent history, in Europe for example, or in the Middle East, to find count less examples to suggest that something very similar is taking place; that a nation will find reflected back from its environment the aggression for example, that it projects.

One could certainly argue that the past 100 years has been a clear demonstration of just such a circumstance. It has been the described as the bloodiest century in human history, as the cycles of aggression and revenge among nations have been reflected back time and time again. Over 70 million people have been killed in wars of one kind or another, estimated by historians as being a greater number than in all previous centuries put together. And yet, despite the world wide suffering and massive destruction, it's quite clear that history, in the sense of human experience, has provided precious few strategies to break this cycle. Certainly not diplomacy, and sadly it seems not the United Nations. At least not yet. There have been over 200 wars since the last great global conflagration, and today the world bristles with more and vastly more powerful death-dealing weapons than ever before.

If you take into account also the emergence of the 24 hour news machine, that wakes us up and puts us to bed, with stories of violence and disaster from one corner of the globe or another, then you can clearly see the reason for the sense of powerlessness and impotence that can affect the lives of so many of us. We can grieve in sympathy, or we can give a few pounds to this charity or to that relief organisation, but what else can we do.

Buddhism's immediate response is that we should look at the environs of our own lives, because that is where we can have an effect. Change Buddhism argues, starts with countless individuals determining to to take responsibility for their own lives, and setting out to develop the optimism and the courage...because it does take real courage...the compassion and the wisdom to have a value-creating and positve effect upon the lives of those around them.

As Daisaku Ikeda once again reminds us with absolute clarity of vision, 'no one was born hating others.'

That is such an amazing statement. It's like suddenly having one's eyes opened.
That's all for today.
See you next time.
Thank you for reading.
William
PS just learned that The Case for Buddhism is being translated into Spanish, as The Reluctant Buddhist and Buddhism and the Science of Happiness have been