MY BUDDHIST BLOG NUMBER 152

Hi Everybody,
Lovely quiet Saturday afternoon. Arsenal has just won 4-1!! Perfect time to spin a little blog. New chapter, new subject, Buddhism and Happiness.
' Do we really need a discussion about the nature of happiness you might well ask? it's such a slippery and elusive emotion to define, and so intensely subjective, that we're in grave danger, aren't we of just going around in pointless circles? And in any case, however difficult it may be to pin it down in a definition does that really make any difference? Isn't it very much like the taste of the strawberry, we may not be able to describe it, but we all know it well enough when we actualy experience it?

But those arguments clearly cut both ways don't they? It's precisely because it is so slippery and so elusive a term that we might get a great deal out of even a brief discussion of what we really mean when we talk about happiness in this world. And personally I think there's a great virtue in being a bit tougher on ourselves, so that we take the time and the trouble to think our thoughts through more completely, and set them down more precisely. Not least because this particular word is, in my view, in danger of being so immensely overused that its meaning becomes gravely dilutes.

And there are other equally compelling reasons. Above all else perhaps the fact that if you are vaguely interested in, or practice Buddhism, you simply can't escape it. You can't have failed to notice for example the number of times the word happiness has cropped up in these blogs so far. Which mirrors the fact that it occurs a great deal in Buddhist discussions. In fact Buddhists will often say that the fundamental reason for their practice is nothing less than greater happiness for themselves and for those around them. And if we give it a moments thought, that too is somewhat surprising, in the sense that if I were to ask you to go away and search for the word ' happiness' in other religious liturgies you might never come back! Why? Because the simple fact is that we have to search very hard indeed to find the word happiness in those contexts; happiness in the here and now that is, in this life, rather than in some heavenly hereafter. That's a very important distinction. The fact is that most religions don't talk about about happiness in this life as having anything to do with the purpose of their existence. Or indeed, talk about it at all.'

That's the introduction. I think it's a really important discussion.
So hope to see you next time around.
Best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available from Amazon as a paperback or as a download from Kindle

my buddhist blog number 151

Good Morning Everybody,
Hope all is well with you. We've come to the end of that discussion about the meaning of the word faith in Buddhism. Todays passage is a bit of a leap forward. It comes at the end of Chapter Three which is essentially about the life and legacy of Nichiren Daishonin, and it's headed Actual Proof, and it makes what seems to me to be an essential point. So here goes,
' So it could be argued that the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin is offering you the opportunity to put the claims that it makes to the test in your own life. Make the decision it says, summon up from within this self-belief, this determination that you are prepared to tackle the things about your own life that you wish to change,' exert yourself in the two ways of practice and study' as Nichiren puts it, and observe the results in your own life, to see whether or not it delivers its promise.

And that ' whether or not ' is crucially important of course. Both options are wholly valid. It's not a practice that one could continue on the basis of someone else's belief! But basically that's the process that I went through some 25 odd years ago, with no small measure of doubt and scepticism as I've mentioned. But there's nothing wrong with a with a dash of healthy scepticism, or even a heavy dose of it. Scepticism is a great asker of difficult questions that demand answers. In the event I've travelled, as I'm sure many others have befor eme and since, from a profound scepticism to an equally profound commitment toa practice that has brought immense value and joy into my life. and I have not the slightest doubt, into the lives of those around me.

People frequently ask me, ' where do you get your constantly positive spirit from? ' I have only one answer, from the daily practice of Nichiren Buddhsim.

Enough for today.
See you next time.
Best wishes,.
William

my buddhist blog number 150

Hi Everybody,
Hope all is well with you. We're in the middle of a discussion about the meaning of the word ' faith ' in Buddhism, that is to say how is it different from the use of the same word in say Christianity or Islam. And right from the start we learn that the fundamental difference in Nichiren Buddhism is that faith is not in any way to be equated with belief in something external, something outside of oneself. The word only has meaning in relation to a quality or a resource that we are seeking  within. As Nichiren Daishonin expresses on so many occasions,

' ...perceive the true nature of your life...if you seek enlightenment outside yourself then your performing even ten thousand practices and ten thousand good deeds will be in vain. It is like the case of the poor man who spends night and day counting his neighbour's wealth but gains not even half a coin..'

So what must faith mean then in this context...if we are to perceive the true nature of our lives?

The somewhat surprising answer is that faith in Buddhism is essentially about belief in oneself, self belief. And it is related directly to the strength of the desire or the determination that we can summon up within our own life to act or to live in accord with Buddhist values and principles. it means going into battle if you like against our own inner weakness or lack of self-confidence or self-belief, so that we can create for ourselves a life that is overwhelmingly resilient and positive and optimistic and compassionate, and always concerned with creating value out of whatever circumstances we might encounter.

Faith in Buddhist terms then is not all that different from the sheer determination or the self-belief we work hard to summon up to pursue any major goal or objective in our lives. We find that we have to learn how to dig deep within ourselves to achieve success in a chosen career, or to turn a crisis situation around, or to overcome a life-threatening illness, or create a lasting and fulfilling relationship. The fundamental difference, and of course it is fundamental, is that in this case the self-belief is anchored firmly in the powerful humanistic philosophy introduced into the world by Shakyamuni, and developed and amplified by  a series of remarkable thinkers and teachers over the past two and and a half thousand years.

So faith in Buddhism is also very much about method; about how we can develop such a life, such an enduring self-belief.
Enough said for today.
Hope you enjoyed it.
See you next time.
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and as a download on Kindle.

my Buddhist blog number 149

Hi Everybody,

Beautiful day. Too nice really to be in and sitting at the keyboard, but I've been totally busy and I promised myself that I would get a blog out today. So we're talking about the meaning of  this word faith in Buddhism.
Big subject. Faith is a chameleon of a word, and we're trying to pin down what it does mean for Buddhists, and of course what it doesn't! Both are important.
So in all the major religions with which we are most familiar, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam for example, we all know that the word faith is used to bind together all those elements of the teaching that are beyond the reach of proof, or beyond the reach of experience. And inevitably, in religions that deal with the nature of divinity itself and how it works in the world, and the nature of the unknowable after life, those un-provable elements are very substantial indeed. so faith in these circumstances has a truly immense role to play. The believer is asked to make what we have come to call a leap of faith to accept those elements of the teaching or doctrine.

And the word leap in this context describes very accurately what we are being asked to do, namely to leave the solid ground of our experience and what we absolutely know to be the case, and put our trust and belief in something that is way outside our normal experience, and what's more, will always be outside our normal human experience. That is not of course questioning in any way the sustained and hugely sustaining power of these religions for countless millions of people over several thousand years. I am simply trying to explore the differences in the way we use this key word faith.

It is clear therefore that in all these major religions faith has much to do with the firm belief in the powers of God and of Allah and the decisive role that power plays in the daily lives of ordinary people. That is to say, this kind of faith which is so deeply embedded in western culture has very much to do with entities, powers, people that are outside of oneself.

Indeed I would go so far as to argue that this idea of taking a leap of faith is now so deeply embedded that it has become the essential meaning of the word itself. Whenever we use the word faith in the West we are normally talking about faith in something  ' out there,' something very much outside ourselves. And I thinkm it helps to be totally aware of that..

which brings us back to the central fact that since there is no all-powerful creator god ' out there' in Buddhism, the word must carry for Buddhists, a very different meaning.

Which we'll look at next time around.Thanks for reading this far.
See you next time hopefully.
Best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon or as a download from Kindle.

my buddhist blog number 148

Hi Everybody,

Back from the beautiful blue and gold of the Mediterranean to a somewhat more autumnal England. Had a great time I must say. But back to work. This passage follows on directly from the previous one about the central message of Shakyamuni expressed in the Lotus Sutra. This accumulated wisdom about learning how to create for oneself a better and a happier life no matter what challenges or problems we all encounter every day of our lives, continues to be about the present and not about the past. It continues to demonstate its direct immediacy and relevance despite the vast changes mankind has lived through in every area of our lives; immense immeasurable changes.

But those are of course external changes, whereas our inner humanity remains unchanged. We still find ourselves blocked and limited by all kinds of disabling doubts and fears. Fears of so many things; fear of inadequacy, fear of rejection, fear of failure and of loss and much else. We still find ourselves knocked down and disabled by problems and difficulties that sometimes seem so overwhelming that we don't know where to turn. We still find it difficult to acknowledge let alone to draw on our inner resources of courage and hope and and optimism to make the very most of our lives.

Indeed some of Buddhism's central teachings about how to recognise and draw upon our inner resources and so overcome many of the negative impulses and responses that we experience, have been taken up and used on a regular basis by some of today's leading psychologists in helping people cope with severe and persistent depression and sadness.

So Buddhism continues to touch and change people's inner lives, in the West now as well as in the east, in increasing numbers. If we ask the question why that is, there are of course many threads to the answer. But undoubtedly one of them will be that there is something immensely powerful, immensely empowering about this central idea that comes from Shakyamuni and Nichiren, about learning how to take hold of our lives in a rational way and moving them towards the positive end of the spectrum. We all want to know how to do that. And that really brings us back to this question of faith in Buddhism? What does it mean? In some ways it is the most important question of all. And that's where we go next time.

Hope to see you then.
Best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and as a download on Kindle.

my buddhist blog number 147

Hi Everybody,

I'm about to go off to Antibes again I'm utterly delighted to say...I love the place...so I thought I'd get in at least one more episode before I go. we're in the middle of a discussion about the nature of Shakyamuni's enlightenment and the we've reached a point where the implications of that enlightenment are expressed in the Lotus Sutra.

The Lotus of the title is seen to be a powerful and many-layered metaphor for many things, but undoubtedly one of the most important, the very heart of the message that it seeks to transmit, is that the lotus is a plant that grows ina muddy swampy environment, and yet produces flowers of extraordinary beauty. Thus it is symbolic of the immense potential that can be revealed, created, brought out of the ordinary, muddled, mundane circumstances of our daily lives, no matter how difficult and challenging the initial circumstances of that life may be.

Thus in the Lotus Sutra Shakyamun essentially turned the religious world on its head. At a time when people saw themselves as being limited and hemmed in by powerful external controlling concepts such as destiny and the will of the gods, Shakyamuni taught them that was not the case, that was not an accurate representation of the reality of human life. Everyone he said could come to understand that man carried his own destiny in his own hands, that our lives are our own to shape and to make. That we have the resources within us, and the freedom to make our own choices, to take control of our lives and move them in the direction we wish to go. Provided only that we accept full responsibility for the choices that we make and their implicatiopns for others around us. That concern for others is the very basis of Buddhist morality.

It was unquestionably a revolutionary teaching then, which is one of the reasons it spread like a bushfire across south East Asia, but what is also unquestioned I suggest, if you give it a moments thought, is that it remains pretty revolutionary today.

Enough for today I think.
Hope to do one more episode before I go.
All my best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on amazon and as a download on kindle.

my buddhist blog number 146

Hi Everybody,
had some real trouble getting here! Google Chrome seem to have made the old pathway I used via explorer no longer viable. I had to use the skills of my nerdy son Sebastian to get me to this familiar pro-forma that enables me to publish the blog. So much gratitude to him. And a new awareness that one can quite easily get mashed in the tech wars that clearly go on between these internet giants. Hmmm.
So where were we? We were trying to get a grip in Shakyamuni's enlightenment. To clear away some of that fog of  mysticism and mythology to understand it more clearly. And we ended the last passage with an image of a Ghandi type figure, immensely approachable, immensely compassionate, surrounded by a crowd listening intently as he taught about a new kind of hope and a new kind of possibility for their lives. But what precisely was that new hope and that new possibility? It is expressed most completely and most powerfully in a teaching or a sutra called The Lotus Sutra. This was the mainspring of Shakyamuni's mission during the final phase of his long teaching life. It represents if you like the summit of that staircase of understanding up which he was steadily taking his followers. It is described as the core and essence of his life's work. The Lotus Sutra is the central text of Mahayana Buddhism, which embraces Nichiren Buddhism. It is a long involved work full of stories and parables which stands alongside the Bible and the Koran as one of the great religious texts of human history. As Daisaku Ikeda, one of the greatest authorities on the Lotus Sutra describes it, at the very heart of the philosophy it teaches is the perception that ...' the inner determination of an individual can transform everything, it gives ultimate expression to the infinite potential and dignity inherent in every human life. '

And Daisaku Ikeda, in his account of Shakyamuni's life gives us a compelling image of Shakyamuni's ordinary humanity when  he writes, ' ...he was a man who, in almost astonishingly plain and unaffected language, employing anecdotes and analogies that could be comprehended by anyone, sought to awaken in each individual the spirit that dwells in the inner being of all people....When he speaks in his unassuming way to mankind, one catches within the clear and simple words echoes from another realm, that of the truly enlightened man who has contended with and overcome darkness in himself, and attained the final resolution of truth.'

It's a memorable image.
Enough for today.
Hope I don't have the same trouble navigating back here again for 147.
Best wishes,
William
The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and as a download on Kindle.