Hi Everybody,
Great day for blogging. Grey cold wet and windy! We're into the final chapter of this book. Quite an inportant one I think as chapters go, on approaching the practice. Episode 2 of this chapter.
' Buddhism is daily life It's very easy to over-complicate Buddhism, and in many ways that simple sounding phrase is at the very heart of the Buddhist message. Trying to learn how to see the problems and the challenges that come ceaselessly from all directions into our lives, as opportunities to grow our lives. And if you think about it even momentarily, that means developing the wisdom to spot these opportunities, and the courage to grab onto them, because trying to see problems from this new persepective inevitably means change and change takes courage
The Buddhist argument essentially is that they are not going to stop coming these challenges. It's a bit like saying something as patently obvious as water is always wet. That's just the way things are. It is the very nature of human life. So Buddhism argues, the only part of the equation over which we have control is our approach to these problems. And the key stage in the process of change we have to go through is coming to understand that this is not a purely intellectual process. The intellect is crucially important of course, but it can only take us so far. Buddhism teaches that we can't simply think our way into a radically different approach to life's ups and downs. We have to work at it, we have to train to acquire that persistently more hopeful perspective.
That training is precisely what the daily practice is about. It is if you like, a daily, life-long training programme for the mind.
Admittedly that is not an easy truth either to believe in or to understand. It's not something we are accustomed to doing. If we get a problem the immediate, instinctive, conditioned response is to go to brain. That's what we've always done. That we believe is where the powerhouse is. We are accustomed in the West, trained even, to live our lives driven by three primary engines; our intellect and our emotions, how we think and how we feel, and by our persona, or how we look and present ourselves. We place huge store, as indeed we should, on our intellectual ability to think our way through life's problems. We attach immense value to emotional expression. And perhaps far too much to externals, to physical appearance.
All Buddhism is saying is,' ...hang on a bit, there's more...there is a much neglected spiritual resource within you that is capable of lifting your life performance to a new level...your Buddha nazture. In learning how you draw it out into you daily life...it could change your whole life!
As the late great philospher and historian Arnold Toynbee has commented,
' Westerners have much to learn in this field from Indian and East Asian experience. In books and articles that I have published I have repeatedly drawn my western readers' attention to this historical fact, as part of my lifelong attempt to jolt modern western man out of his ludicrously mistaken belief that modern western civilisation has made itself superior to all others by outstripping them. '
Thats a great comment I would argue, from Arnold Toynbee. A kind of wake-up call to the west.
Anyway, enough for today. Hope it made sense. See you on Wednesday next.
Best wishes to everone,
William
No comments:
Post a Comment