my bvbuddhist blog number 141

Hi Everybody,

This passage follows on almost directly from the last line of the last episode........never before have so many people in the West turned to Buddhism to find answers to their questions about life, the universe and everything.

What makes it all this more remarkable is that this global movement is taking place not on the backs of missionaries or itinerant preachers as you might expect, or anything resembling them, but slowly steadily, almost imperceptibly, in a truly modern way, as a result simply of people talking other people, largely on a one to one basis. ' This is my experience. You might find it useful in your life.'
The very basis in a sense on which this book, this blog, is being written.

Moreover it's taking place in an age, as I've said, that is far more notable for its rampant materialism and its widespread cynicism than for its religious commitment, and despite the fact that a Buddhist practice is genuinely demanding. It calls for application and effort and commitment, because we are learning a new set of life skills, fundamentally new ways of thinking about ourselves and our relationships, and how to tackle the tough and challenging stuff that is inherent in all our lives.

Clearly it is fulfilling some perceived need for a stronger and more meaningful spiritual life for many people; a searching for something more to life, a reaction perhaps against these powerful influences of cynicism and materialism at work in society. There is so much more available to be 'done' these days, and so much more to ' hunger' after in shopping malls and supermarkets and on the web, that we can find our lives almost entirely taken up with ' stuff.' With the doing and the arranging and the acquiring and the moving on from one event, one party, one club to the next.

But is that enough? Is that what we really want? The point is that we are undoubtedly spiritual animals, however much we try to convince ourselves that aren't.'

Nuff said.
Thanks for readingn thus far.
See you next time.
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and on Kindle in English and Spanish.

my buddhist blog number 140

Hi Everybody,

It's been a really productive week with the new book, which is called by the way A Personal Journey, because its very much about my own personal interests and my journey into a Buddhist practice. But back to today's blog with a little piece on Buddhism's modern relevance.
' These distinctive elements of Buddhism, its essential humanism, its dynamic humanism, as it's sometimes called because its purpose is to change and move our whole life towards the positive end of the spectrum, and its unbounded inclusiveness, are perhaps the key qualities that give Buddhism its universal relevance and its astounding everlasting modernity. It may have begun in the deer park in the little town of Sarnath in Northern India all those years ago when Shakyamuni first sat down to talk to a small group of people about his newly-won ideas, but in no sense is it ancient, in no sense is it stuck in time or backwards looking. It continues to be powerfully about the here and now of our daily lives.

Witness to this is the fact that over the past 40 or 50 years many tens of thousands of people in Europe and the Americas for example, and elsewhere, have chosen to place a Buddhist practice at the very centre of their lives. For the very first time in its history, during what might well be described as the most materialistic and possibly the least spiritual of all the ages of man, Buddhism is flowing strongly westwards out of Japan and Asia, and into the western-way-of-life parts of the world. Indeed never before in its history has Buddhism spread so rapidly or so widely in terms of its geographical area, and never before have so many people in the West turned to Buddhism to find answers to their questions about life, the universe and everything.'

That'll do for today. Off now to spen some time in a care hom,e form people with dementia to see if I can create some value.

With all my best wishes,

William. have a great weekend.
The Case for Buddhism is available as a paperback on Amazon and as a download on Kindle in English and Spanish

mybuddhistblog number 139

Hi Everybody,
I'm just continuing this process of flicking through The Case for Buddhism and picking up themes and issues that I wasn't able to cover on the first pass. At the moment we're talking about Buddhism and humanism.
There are of course many profound implications that arise from Buddhism's basic humanism. By no means least is that since it isn't about a God of gods, we have to be careful about how we use key words like  'faith ' for example and ' prayer.'  They occur all the time in the writings of all religions, including Buddhism. But if there isn't a God to have faith in or to pray to, then clearly these words will mean something very different in Buddhism, from the way we commonly understand them on the basis of our Judaeo-Christian heritage. And it goes without saying doesn't it, that it's crucially important that we have some understanding of what that difference is.

Thus one key implication that is absolutely fundamental to anyone approaching Buddhism for the first time, is that the wisdom and the understanding that has been generated by this process of evolution down the centuries on the nature of human life and motivation and relationships is passed on to all men and women on the basis of equality. Complete equality. That is such an important point, but it's one that is extraordinarily difficult to grasp, even for those who have been practising for many years. Because we are so accustomed in the West, we might even say conditioned, to believing that there is this vast unbridgeable gulf that normally exists between the teacher, the bearer of the wisdom, the Jesus of Mohammed figure, and the rest of humanity, us ordinary human beings. That gulf simply does not exist in Buddhism.

Shakyamuni tells us repeatedly , so that there should be absolutely no doubt, that he is simply one of us. Indeed for him to be deified in any way by his followers would run counter to the central thrust of his teaching. It would deny if you like the central idea that the life state he achieved, filled with hope and optimism and courage and resilience, despite the toughness of his life, is available to all of us. We can learn that is how to achieve it in this lifetime. That learning is indeed what the practice is all about. '

Nuff said for today I think.
Hope it's clear.
See you next time around.

William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon

my buddhist blog number 138

Hi Everybody,
Had a great great time away in the sun. Just back. Picking up the blog trail with a little piece on Buddhism and belief.
' The essential starting point for anyone seeking to understand a little more about Buddhism  is that it doesn't have a god at its centre. It is atheistic or humanistic. That is to say it doesn't have at its heart, or anywhere else for that matter, the all-seeing, all-powerful, creator-god figure that sits at the heart of all the other major world religions, particularly those with which we are most familiar in western  societies, Christianity and Judaism, Islam and Hinduism.

That is very easy to say and very easy to comprehend on an intellectual level, but in my experience it is much more difficult to grasp on a sort of daily, practical, down-to-earth level, because the implications are so profound and far-reaching.

Thus ther eis no divine hierarchy in Buddhism. It is this characteristic above all that gives Buddhism its wholly distinctive character. Instead of there being a set of dogma and beliefs handed down to mankind in various ways by a divine presence or divine being, Buddhism is firmly rooted from first to last in ordinary humanity. Moreover, since it is not attached to any definition of divinity, Buddhism doesn't have any boundaries. It doesn't have for example the boundaries that have been the source of so much conflict down the centuries that divide the Islamic defintion of divinity from the Judaic, or the Judaic from the Christian or the Christian from the Hindu. It is wholly inclusive. No one and indeed no thing is excluded. It is wholly inclusive.

So it is a colossal humanist vision that reaches out to embrace every man's relationship with himself, man with his fellow human beings, and man with his universal environment. Buddhism in effect draws three concentric circles round our lies. Ourselves at the centre. Then othe rpeople, society as a whole, a truly global society. Then the outer ring of the universal environment. So Buddhism is immensely forward looking, immensely modern you might say, in that it has always argued that all three are intimately connected in every way, and for us to live a truly full and fulfilling life we need to learn how to be creatively connected to all three. '

That's it for today.
Pleased to be back.
Look forward to seeing you again next episode.
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available in paperback from Amazon and as a download from Kindle.

my buddhist blog number 137

Hi Everybody,
Just time for one more episode before I'm off to the sun sand and blue sea!
A brief piece that seems to me to be particularly relevant to today's society.

' We have become accustomed in the West to seeking our solutions not so much in individual change but through political manoeuvring or through the promises of science and technology. But it's quite clear that both have severe limitations when it comes to achieving profound social change. Inevitably societies are made up of individuals, and in essence, Buddhism is about transforming society in the only way that profound social change can be sustained, from the bottom up, by transforming individual lives. It talks indeed of human revolution, individual by individual. We could certainly argue I think that rarely in human history has there been a greater need for a philosophy of society based upon individual responsibility, and profound respect for the welfare of others.

Both describe what Buddhism is about. '

Thats it!
See you when I get back.
Best wishes,
William

my buddhist blog number 136

Hi Everybody,
Just about to escape to  Antibes in the south of France with Sarah for a couple of weeks of sun and sea and windsurfing, but I thought it would be good to get in an episode before I go. So here goes.
The Case for Buddhism page 9.

'...without wishing to push the analogy too far Buddhism might be said to provide a significant bridge between s living spiritual philosophy and the ever-increasing lines of books in the self-help section of your local bookshop, with their various forms of instant advice on how we might get better at the game of life, because Buddhism in a sense has a foot in both camps. It has the bedrock of a profound and all-embracing philosophy that touches upon every aspect of human life, and which has truly stood the test of time. But it is also just as genuinely about self-help and about self-belief. The very heart of Buddhism is about our learning how to handle the daily business of living more confidently and more bouyantly.

As Daisaku Ikeda, one of the greatest living authorities on Buddhism has expressed it, ' Buddhism is a movement emphasising self-education.'

That is to say Buddhism is about learning how to accept total responsibility for all the determinations and all the causes that we make as we go about our daily lives. '

Best wishes.
Hopefully see you next time.
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available as a paperback from Amazon and as a download from Kindle.

my buddhist blog number 135

Hi Everybody,
On this brilliant summers day in London. Literally azure blue skies from horizon to horizon. So i'm sitting in the garden in the slanting rays of the hot evening sun, listening to a blackbird singing its heart out at the top of a nearby tree. One of the ancillary purposes of writing The Case for Buddhism was to clear away some of the many stereotypes that obscure the western view of what Buddhism is about.
One of the many such stereotypes for example, that obscures the general perception of Buddhism in the west is that it is very much about giving things up, or, at the very least, about introducng a kind of spare asceticism into our lives, in pursuit of spirituality. The plain fact is that Buddhism is very much focused on increasing the richness of our experience of our lives, and in the here and now, rather than inn some heavenly hereafter. In the process it talks to us a great deal; about what we mean by happiness or well-being. In fact it is alone among the major world religions in proposing the extraordinary idea that happiness isn't a matter of chance or accident as we commonly believe, something that comes to us if we just happen to be particularly lucky or fortunate, but essentially a matter of choice. Indeed Buddhism goes further and argues that we can all without exception, learn how to make that choice. The learning process, it declares, is neither particularly difficult, nor exclusive, nor, most important of all, it is not dependant upon our external life circumstances. Again that is a truly life-changing idea, and one that is clearly worth discussing at any time, since what we all want, one way or another, is a greater measure of this stuff called well-being in our lives!

But it is, I would suggest, an idea of particular relevance at this time we happen to be living through. Why do I say that? Because for the very first time in its history, science too seems to have become keenly interested in the idea of happiness and how it might be achieved. So, it could be argued, we are privileged to live in very unusual times when very considerable and genuinely scientific energy is focused on understanding precisely what it is that makes people feel good about their lives and their relationships, in all kinds of circumstances, not just in wealthy or well-heeled or fortunate ones.

Some knowledgeable observers even sugges that we might be looking at the beginning of a whole new science, a science of happiness indeed. Perhaps. But at the very least we are being offered a wholly new way of looking at so many things about our motivation and behaviour that Buddhism has been talking to us about for many many years. That is one of the central themes of this book.'

Enough for today.
Thanks for reading.
See you next time.
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available in English and Spanish! on Amazon or as a download on Kindle.