Hi Everybody,
Hope you are well. Beautiful sun-kissed day here in London. Walking with my dog Gatsby in Richmond Park had the breath of spring about it. Bit early for that of course.No doubt we'll have snow before the week is out!
So where are we? Middle of Chapter 3, Buddhism and Belief, a really important issue to get to grips with and in this episode we pick up this central question of faith in Buddhism...
' ....what can it possibly mean in a religionthat has no gods to have faith in? One hurdle we have to leap over before we get to that is the subject of Shakyamuni's own enlightenment, the nature of the reality he came to understand. Enlightenment is in a sense a technical term in Buddhism, and I think it really helps to see it in that light. Indeed the word Buddha itself essentially means the enlightened one, it comes from a Sanskrit word that means to be awakened, or to be aware of, or to know deeply. And the key thing to note is that those are quite human-scale activities aren't they? Nothing divine about them. We can all wake up, or be aware, or know deeply.
So how should we deal with the fact of Shakyamuni's enlightenment? In many ways the concept of a state of being, or a state of mind labelled enlightenment is strange to us, not to say alien. It's a word we're not l;ikely to use often, if at all. In an essentially intellectual and materialist age we are much more attuned to, and much more comfortable with, down-to-earth explanations and scientific patterns of proof. But of course, as we all know, there is much more to our humanity, particularly our humanity when it is lived at the highest level, than can be observed and measured in a laboratory. So we have to accept I think that in using an unusual word like enlightenment we are reaching out in an attempt to describe something that may be very difficult to actually pin down, but which nevertheless remains a wholly valid part of human experience. Put simply we might say that enlightenment involves a completely different view of reality. One analogy that comes to mind is the sort of phase change as it's called in physics, that happens when water turns to ice. It is the same stuff so to speak, precisely the same molecular substance, nothing has been added or taken away, ( except energy ) but itr is also a complete transformation.
But in truth, metaphores take us only so far don't they? Many attempts have been made to bring the implications of Shakyamuni's experience closer to us. They contain many ideas that have become the central pillars of Buddhist thought, ideas that underpin the entire structure. So let's look at a couple of these ideas to see if they help to clarify things for us. Take the profound interconnectedness of everything in the universe for example, from the dust beneath our feet to the great galaxies spirallin gout on the edge of space. Everything, Shakyamuni tells us, is interconnected, way beyond anything that we can possibly perceive and understand with our senses.
Perhaps the strangest thing for most of us is the fact that today's most eminent scientists talk to us ina disturbingly similar way. The late, great, nobel-prize winning American physicist Richard Feynman for example tells us;
' First of all there is matter, and remarkably enough, all matter is the same. The matter of which the stars are made is known to be the same as the matter on earth...The same kinds of atoms appear to be in living creatures as in non-living creatures, frogs are amde of the same ' goup' as rocks, only in different arrangements.'
It's hard to think of any other scientist who could use the word 'goup' in a scientific text and get away with it! The fact that Feynman describes a profound connection between frogs and rocks is surprising enough, but what he is clearly saying in plain English, is that all matter, animate and inanimate is deeply interconnected.
And then there's the great philosopher-scientist Daniel Dennett tellingn us almost exactly the same thing from a slightly different persepective;
' There is just one family tree ( he tells us ) on which all living things that have ever lived on this planet can be found...not just animals but plants and algae and bacteria as well. You share a common ancestor with every chimpanzee, every worm, every blade of grass, every redwood tree.'
' ...all living things that have ever lived on this planet...' It's a phrase that takes the breath away. But just think of the implications. It means that the bunch of roses that you give to your beloved partner on your anniversary carries DNA that connects them closely top the hand that holds them. The family dog that takes you lovingly for a walk every morning, as my gatsby does, hangs from the same family tree as yourself. There could surely be no clearer confirmation of Shakyamuni's perception of a universal interconnectedness, all those years ago.
Then there's his perception that lies at the very heart of Buddhism, that change, or impermanence, is the very nature of all things. However much we may cling on to the idea that what we have we hold, however fiercely we may desire things to remain as they are, nothing, nothing, ever stays the same from one moment to the next. Everything that ever is or was, every life, every relationship, goes through the same endless cycle of birth, growth, decline and death.
- becoming, growing, susbsiding, dying
- forming, continuing, declining, disintegrating.
Once again this is absolutely in tune with the message from modern science. The only thing that varies is the period of the cycle, from a few millionths of a micro-second for the life span of a sub-atomic particel say, to the life span of a mayfly, or a man, or a mountain, or the dramatic events in the life cycle of a star, like our Sun, spread over many millions of years. Science has steadily discovered and we have steadily come to understand, that they all become, grow, decline and die.
It's worth adding perhaps, to bring this passage to an end, that there is an extraordinary paradox in all of this, one of so many in Buddhism, in that underlying this universal cycle of flux and change, that affects all things without exception, there is a single constancy; the unchanging constancy of the rhythm itself, that sustains and supports the endless cycling from birth to death.
Well that's it for now I think. Enough to take in for one session. But I must say I am enjoying retracin gthe journey in short stages like this. It does sharpen the focus on particular passages.
Hope it does for you too.
See you next week.
William
Well that's it for now I think. Enough to grasp for one session. But I must say I AM ENJOYING
Saturday, 25 January 2014
Monday, 20 January 2014
my buddhist blog
Hi Everybody,
Back at the keyboard. Been very busy this weekend getting my son Sebastian back to uni, so I missed the Saturday session. I'm trying to do posts on Monday's and Saturdays to keep things moving. Got a whole book to cover!
So we're in the middle of Chapter 3 which is called Buddhism and Belief, and which deals with this central issue of waht we mean by ' faith ' in Buddhism. So we pick up the story on p 43
' Thus a Buddhist practice is esentially about empowering people, enabling us to use all the resources that we have, spiritual as well as intellectual, to build strong and meaningful lives for ourselves...and for others...the two are inextricably interlinked. It's about learning how to think of ourselves in terms of our relations with other people, in term sof compassion and altruism, rather than our acquisitive individualism. Because Buddhism, perhaps more than any other religion...except possibly the 'religion'
of science...brings constantly to our attention the profound implications of the fact that we al live in a totally joined up world. The world's media may have been talking about the Global Village for only a decade or so, but Buddhism has always taught it. and now we've all caught up. We all now understand that nowhere in the world is very far away any more; that what happens on a dusty street in Palestine, or in an African township, or on a remote part of the Japanese coastline, can touch and change all our lives.
So these distinctive elements of Buddhismm that we have been talking about in the past 2 or 3 blogs; its - its essential humanism, its dynamic humanism as it's sometimes called because its purpose is to change and move our whole lives towards the positive end of the psectrum
- 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 lives.
Witness to that 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 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.
Moreover there are no easy answers to explain away this proces. It's not an age thing, young or old, nor is it confined to any particular social grouping. Indeed it's noteworthy that the people who have adopted a buddhist practice in the west come from all walks of life, all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of careers, from actors and accountants to plumbers and television producers and taxi drivers and traders in the city. Ordinary people, living in the real world, bringing up their families, and pursuing their careers, and individually making the choice to put it all together under the overarching framework of a Buddhist set of values and principles. It is a genuine revolution of sorts. Indeed it has been described by some religious historians as a new departure in the religious history of the West. One knowledgeable commentator has gone so far as to describe this modern movement as being of similar significance in the history of Buddhism, as the Protestant Reformation was in the history of Christianity ( Nur Yalman Prof. of Anthropology at Harvard. quoted in Sekiyo Shimbun 26.11.93)
What makes it all the more remarkable I think is that this global movement is taking place not on the backs of missionaries or itinerant teachers 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 to 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 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 think about 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 the powerful influences of cynicism and materialism at work in society. There is just 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 may try to convince ourselves that we are not.
Madonna once told us most persuasively that this is a material world and that she is very much a material girl. That may indeed be so, but ther is a powerful line from Bruce Springsteen that bring sus a completely diferent message, and one that reflects perhaps a growing change in social sentiment.
' It's time to start saving up...he says...for the things that money can't buy...'
The things that money can't buy...what can he possibly mean, other than a deeper and more meaningful spiritual life, beyond the bounds of mere materialism. '
Good place to stop I think. I love that playing Bruce off against the old Madonna,
who has herself of course long since built a more powerful spiritual dimension into her life, but that's another story.
Hope these bite-sized chunks are about the right length.
See you on Saturday.
Best wishes, William Woollard
Back at the keyboard. Been very busy this weekend getting my son Sebastian back to uni, so I missed the Saturday session. I'm trying to do posts on Monday's and Saturdays to keep things moving. Got a whole book to cover!
So we're in the middle of Chapter 3 which is called Buddhism and Belief, and which deals with this central issue of waht we mean by ' faith ' in Buddhism. So we pick up the story on p 43
' Thus a Buddhist practice is esentially about empowering people, enabling us to use all the resources that we have, spiritual as well as intellectual, to build strong and meaningful lives for ourselves...and for others...the two are inextricably interlinked. It's about learning how to think of ourselves in terms of our relations with other people, in term sof compassion and altruism, rather than our acquisitive individualism. Because Buddhism, perhaps more than any other religion...except possibly the 'religion'
of science...brings constantly to our attention the profound implications of the fact that we al live in a totally joined up world. The world's media may have been talking about the Global Village for only a decade or so, but Buddhism has always taught it. and now we've all caught up. We all now understand that nowhere in the world is very far away any more; that what happens on a dusty street in Palestine, or in an African township, or on a remote part of the Japanese coastline, can touch and change all our lives.
So these distinctive elements of Buddhismm that we have been talking about in the past 2 or 3 blogs; its - its essential humanism, its dynamic humanism as it's sometimes called because its purpose is to change and move our whole lives towards the positive end of the psectrum
- 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 lives.
Witness to that 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 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.
Moreover there are no easy answers to explain away this proces. It's not an age thing, young or old, nor is it confined to any particular social grouping. Indeed it's noteworthy that the people who have adopted a buddhist practice in the west come from all walks of life, all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of careers, from actors and accountants to plumbers and television producers and taxi drivers and traders in the city. Ordinary people, living in the real world, bringing up their families, and pursuing their careers, and individually making the choice to put it all together under the overarching framework of a Buddhist set of values and principles. It is a genuine revolution of sorts. Indeed it has been described by some religious historians as a new departure in the religious history of the West. One knowledgeable commentator has gone so far as to describe this modern movement as being of similar significance in the history of Buddhism, as the Protestant Reformation was in the history of Christianity ( Nur Yalman Prof. of Anthropology at Harvard. quoted in Sekiyo Shimbun 26.11.93)
What makes it all the more remarkable I think is that this global movement is taking place not on the backs of missionaries or itinerant teachers 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 to 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 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 think about 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 the powerful influences of cynicism and materialism at work in society. There is just 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 may try to convince ourselves that we are not.
Madonna once told us most persuasively that this is a material world and that she is very much a material girl. That may indeed be so, but ther is a powerful line from Bruce Springsteen that bring sus a completely diferent message, and one that reflects perhaps a growing change in social sentiment.
' It's time to start saving up...he says...for the things that money can't buy...'
The things that money can't buy...what can he possibly mean, other than a deeper and more meaningful spiritual life, beyond the bounds of mere materialism. '
Good place to stop I think. I love that playing Bruce off against the old Madonna,
who has herself of course long since built a more powerful spiritual dimension into her life, but that's another story.
Hope these bite-sized chunks are about the right length.
See you on Saturday.
Best wishes, William Woollard
Tuesday, 14 January 2014
my buddhist blog
Hi Everybody,
I'm back, back from the mountains, all that glistening snow and the air so clear that it shimmers somehow, and the sheer pleasure that comes from concentrating on nothing other than the next turn or the next mogul to slide round. There is undoubtedly a kind of rejuvenation that comes simply from being away from the urban environment and being close to nature again, the darkness of the pine forests or the harshness of the rock faces that loom against the sky. It lifts the spirit. In one of my books, I think it's in The Reluctant Buddhist I wrote about something that has actually been identified as the ' biophilia effect.' Basically it has been shown that the love of the natural world is so deeply embedded within our nature that when we walk in green fields or deep and shady woods, or for that matter ski in the high mountains, the pleasure we feel in our spirit, has a manifest effect upon our physiology, in terms of reducing our blood pressure for example and relaxing our facial muscles. The anxieties of life that we all experience drop away from us for a while. We feel a deeper relaxation.
Buddhism of course would say ' Of course!' and would speak to us eloquently about the oneness of mind and body, with the beautiful clarity of the phrase, ' two but not two.' That is to say the mind and body may appear to be different entities. Indeed in the west we are very much conditioned by the overwhelming cultural and medical tradition to view them in that way. But Buddhism argues that that is an incomplete view of the reality. The deeper reality, Buddhism teaches, is that they are simply two different aspects of each individual life, as inseparable, as distinct and yet as intimately related as two sides of a sheet of paper, or as your body and its image in the mirror. If you move one you inevitably move the other.
Both my spirit and my body were undoubtedly moved by being in the mountains last week.
But let me move on to where we were in Chapter 3, which is about Buddhism and belief, and discusses this central issue of what we mean by words like ' faith' and ' prayer' in Buddhism when we have no God or gods to have faith in, or to pray to. So we talked about Buddhism's profound humanism, and the implications of that. So we pick up the story on page 41.
' 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 fully, 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 a vast unbridgeable gulf that normally exists between the teacher, the bearer of the wisdom, the Jesus or the Mohammed figure, and the rest of humanity, us ordinary human beings. That gulf simply does not exist in Buddhism.
Shakyamuni, the seed from which this great tree of Buddhism has grown remember, 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 completely 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 all learn that is, how to achieve it, in this lifetime.
That learning indeed, is what the practice is all about.
So if we strip away all the stories and the legends and the mythologies that have inevitably accumulated around so great a life, lived so long ago, Shakyamuni, an dindeed all the historical Buddhas down the years, have been ordinary human beings. They were undoubtedly extraordinary in terms of their wisdom, and the clarity of their vision, and their profound grasp of the reality of human life. And no doubt extraordinary too in their charisma, and their ability to convey that understanding to others. But apart from that, they manifested many of the ordinary human frailties. And they too struggled, as we all do, to bear the trials and tribulation sof ordinary men and women.
And the clear message that we should take from this, is that the fundamental quality at the centre of their lives, which happens to be described as their Buddhahood, or Buddha nature, was part of their ordinary humanity, it was not a thing apart.
Conversely, Buddhism teaches, that all the rest of us ordinary human beings, have within us the potential to attain this same life state. The importance of that understanding becomes evident when we get to talking in more detail about what this word Buddhahood means. But the key point is tha tit has nothing to do with an aspiration towards perfection, or elevation of any kind. Not at all. It's not a religious quality in any way, that is perhaps the biggest misconception. It is simply a human quality. An inner resource that, Buddhism teaches, we can all learn how to harness and make use of in dealing with all the stuff of our ordinary daily lives. '
Enough for one day do you think? I think so. My plan is to take the year to cover the whole book, so we've got plenty of time. It's great to see that the number of readers is climbing steadily. And I'm deeply grateful for everyone whose found it, in the vast mass of material that's out there, and whose prepared to stick with it. See you next time, blog...or as Vittoria would have it...blogism...numero 12.
See you, William.
I'm back, back from the mountains, all that glistening snow and the air so clear that it shimmers somehow, and the sheer pleasure that comes from concentrating on nothing other than the next turn or the next mogul to slide round. There is undoubtedly a kind of rejuvenation that comes simply from being away from the urban environment and being close to nature again, the darkness of the pine forests or the harshness of the rock faces that loom against the sky. It lifts the spirit. In one of my books, I think it's in The Reluctant Buddhist I wrote about something that has actually been identified as the ' biophilia effect.' Basically it has been shown that the love of the natural world is so deeply embedded within our nature that when we walk in green fields or deep and shady woods, or for that matter ski in the high mountains, the pleasure we feel in our spirit, has a manifest effect upon our physiology, in terms of reducing our blood pressure for example and relaxing our facial muscles. The anxieties of life that we all experience drop away from us for a while. We feel a deeper relaxation.
Buddhism of course would say ' Of course!' and would speak to us eloquently about the oneness of mind and body, with the beautiful clarity of the phrase, ' two but not two.' That is to say the mind and body may appear to be different entities. Indeed in the west we are very much conditioned by the overwhelming cultural and medical tradition to view them in that way. But Buddhism argues that that is an incomplete view of the reality. The deeper reality, Buddhism teaches, is that they are simply two different aspects of each individual life, as inseparable, as distinct and yet as intimately related as two sides of a sheet of paper, or as your body and its image in the mirror. If you move one you inevitably move the other.
Both my spirit and my body were undoubtedly moved by being in the mountains last week.
But let me move on to where we were in Chapter 3, which is about Buddhism and belief, and discusses this central issue of what we mean by words like ' faith' and ' prayer' in Buddhism when we have no God or gods to have faith in, or to pray to. So we talked about Buddhism's profound humanism, and the implications of that. So we pick up the story on page 41.
' 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 fully, 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 a vast unbridgeable gulf that normally exists between the teacher, the bearer of the wisdom, the Jesus or the Mohammed figure, and the rest of humanity, us ordinary human beings. That gulf simply does not exist in Buddhism.
Shakyamuni, the seed from which this great tree of Buddhism has grown remember, 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 completely 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 all learn that is, how to achieve it, in this lifetime.
That learning indeed, is what the practice is all about.
So if we strip away all the stories and the legends and the mythologies that have inevitably accumulated around so great a life, lived so long ago, Shakyamuni, an dindeed all the historical Buddhas down the years, have been ordinary human beings. They were undoubtedly extraordinary in terms of their wisdom, and the clarity of their vision, and their profound grasp of the reality of human life. And no doubt extraordinary too in their charisma, and their ability to convey that understanding to others. But apart from that, they manifested many of the ordinary human frailties. And they too struggled, as we all do, to bear the trials and tribulation sof ordinary men and women.
And the clear message that we should take from this, is that the fundamental quality at the centre of their lives, which happens to be described as their Buddhahood, or Buddha nature, was part of their ordinary humanity, it was not a thing apart.
Conversely, Buddhism teaches, that all the rest of us ordinary human beings, have within us the potential to attain this same life state. The importance of that understanding becomes evident when we get to talking in more detail about what this word Buddhahood means. But the key point is tha tit has nothing to do with an aspiration towards perfection, or elevation of any kind. Not at all. It's not a religious quality in any way, that is perhaps the biggest misconception. It is simply a human quality. An inner resource that, Buddhism teaches, we can all learn how to harness and make use of in dealing with all the stuff of our ordinary daily lives. '
Enough for one day do you think? I think so. My plan is to take the year to cover the whole book, so we've got plenty of time. It's great to see that the number of readers is climbing steadily. And I'm deeply grateful for everyone whose found it, in the vast mass of material that's out there, and whose prepared to stick with it. See you next time, blog...or as Vittoria would have it...blogism...numero 12.
See you, William.
Friday, 3 January 2014
my buddhist blog
Hi Everybody,
Well I'm packed and ready to go. Everything is sorted. My beautiful golden retriever Gatsby is going to be looked after by a house sitter rather than being packed off to kennels, which he's always been uncertain about. So, I've a couple of hours to spare, and what better way to spend it than a bit of blogging. So let's launch into Chapter 3. It's called Buddhism and Belief, and it sets out to deal with what we mean when we use words like faith and prayer in Buddhism. So here we go on page 39.
' 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 profound and never ending. Thus there is 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 definition 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 it 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 rings aroundn our lives. Ourselves at the centre. Then other people, or society as a whole, a truly global societ. Then the outer ring of the universal environment. So Buddhism is immensely forward-looking you might say, immensely modern in that it has always argued that all three are intimately interconnected in every way. No one of them is complete without the others, and for us to live a truly full and fulfilling life it argues, we need to learn how to be connected creatively to all three.
That is to say we have to know how to fully respect our own life, with all its qualities and imperfections; understanding and embracing our faults and imperfections as well as our qualities is essential to our well-being. We need to support the lives of others in every way that we can conceive. And we need to play a consciously constructive part in protecting and preserving the natural environment that sustains us all.
There is no clearer way of expressing this idea I feel, than to say that Buddhism is in every way a man made religion, although you won't of course find those words in that form, in any Buddhist text. So the body of Buddhist teachings essentially represent the wisdom and the insights initially of one man, Shakyamuni himself, immensely extended and amplified down the succeeding centuries by some of the greatest minds in human history. But none of them at any point claimed any sort of divin ity, or divine connection. Shakyamuni constantly makes this clear in his teachings, and there are many references in the various commentaries that we might use to buttress the point, but two perhaps will suffice.
One is from an internationally renowned buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hahn, and goes as follows;
' Buddha was not a god. He was a human being like you and me and he suffered just like we do.'
The other is from an eminent Buddhist historian, who writes,
' The Buddha always stresed that he was a guide, not an authority, and that all religious propositions must be tested, including his own.'
There are of course many profound implications that arise from Buddhism's basic humanism. By no means least is the fact that since it isn't about a God or gods, we have to be careful about how we usekey 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? '
That's it for today. Enough food for thought. I'm off to the mountains and the snow. I'll be back again with blog number 11 on or around 12th January.
Best wishes,
William
The book The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon.
imperfections, understanding and embracing our faults and imperfections is
Well I'm packed and ready to go. Everything is sorted. My beautiful golden retriever Gatsby is going to be looked after by a house sitter rather than being packed off to kennels, which he's always been uncertain about. So, I've a couple of hours to spare, and what better way to spend it than a bit of blogging. So let's launch into Chapter 3. It's called Buddhism and Belief, and it sets out to deal with what we mean when we use words like faith and prayer in Buddhism. So here we go on page 39.
' 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 profound and never ending. Thus there is 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 definition 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 it 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 rings aroundn our lives. Ourselves at the centre. Then other people, or society as a whole, a truly global societ. Then the outer ring of the universal environment. So Buddhism is immensely forward-looking you might say, immensely modern in that it has always argued that all three are intimately interconnected in every way. No one of them is complete without the others, and for us to live a truly full and fulfilling life it argues, we need to learn how to be connected creatively to all three.
That is to say we have to know how to fully respect our own life, with all its qualities and imperfections; understanding and embracing our faults and imperfections as well as our qualities is essential to our well-being. We need to support the lives of others in every way that we can conceive. And we need to play a consciously constructive part in protecting and preserving the natural environment that sustains us all.
There is no clearer way of expressing this idea I feel, than to say that Buddhism is in every way a man made religion, although you won't of course find those words in that form, in any Buddhist text. So the body of Buddhist teachings essentially represent the wisdom and the insights initially of one man, Shakyamuni himself, immensely extended and amplified down the succeeding centuries by some of the greatest minds in human history. But none of them at any point claimed any sort of divin ity, or divine connection. Shakyamuni constantly makes this clear in his teachings, and there are many references in the various commentaries that we might use to buttress the point, but two perhaps will suffice.
One is from an internationally renowned buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hahn, and goes as follows;
' Buddha was not a god. He was a human being like you and me and he suffered just like we do.'
The other is from an eminent Buddhist historian, who writes,
' The Buddha always stresed that he was a guide, not an authority, and that all religious propositions must be tested, including his own.'
There are of course many profound implications that arise from Buddhism's basic humanism. By no means least is the fact that since it isn't about a God or gods, we have to be careful about how we usekey 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? '
That's it for today. Enough food for thought. I'm off to the mountains and the snow. I'll be back again with blog number 11 on or around 12th January.
Best wishes,
William
The book The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon.
imperfections, understanding and embracing our faults and imperfections is
Monday, 30 December 2013
my Buddhist blog
Hi Everybody, December 30th, on the cusp of the new year. I'm off for a bit of sunshine at the end of this week so I thought it would be good to at least wrap up Chapter 2 before I go, even possibly launch into Chapter 3 of The Case for Buddhism, which is a really crucial chapter that asks, and tries to answer a crucial question in Buddhism, what do we mean when we use the word ' faith.' In a powerfully humanistic religion that has no gods or divine beings to have faith in, what do we mean when we as Buddhists use these words like ' faith' and ' prayer' that inevitably carry so much baggage from our basically Judao-Christian culture.
But let me use this blog, number 9 to round off Chapter 2.
So to recap briefly, in Blog number 7 I answered the question why am I a Nichiren Buddhist? That really describes the journey I personally travelled from deepest scepticism to a profound and enduring commitment to the practice that has unquestionably affected every aspect of my life, as a father and a husband and friend and colleague at work.
In Blog number 8 I introduced the second main strand of the argument I pursue in this book, the science. and try to define the way in which the remarkable body of findings that have come out of sociological and psychological research over the past couple of decades really walk across very much the same territory as Buddhist teachings, since they are profoundly concerned with the values and behaviour that enable us to live the most creative and fulfilling lives, for ourselves, and for the societies that we inhabit.
So as I've said, let me just round of that argument in this post, because to be absolutely fair to any reader I have to ask the direct question, ' Do we need an understanding, or an awareness even, of the science, to develop an effective Buddhist practice.' We pick up the argument on p 35.
' There can only be one answer, and it's in the negative. We do not. But listen to this from the late great historian and philosopher, Arnold Toynbee,
' Science and religion need not and ought not to be in conflict. They are to complementary ways of approaching the universe mentally, in order to cope with it. '
Or this from philosopher Robert Solomon,
' Spirituality is supported and informed by science. The more we know about the world the more we can appreciate it.'
Just listen to the power of that phrase, ' spirituality is supported and informed by science!'
So they are telling us quite clearly that in order to make the very most of this rich and complex life that we are living, we benefit from both kinds of illumination, the spiritual and the scientific. That unquestionably rings true doesn't it?
And this from Tsunesaburo makiguchi, the visionary Japanese educational reformer who founded the lay Buddhist organisation that today is at the forefront of the spread of Buddhist values and beliefs into the western world,
' I could find no contradiction between science, philosophy, which is the basis of our modern society, and the teachings of the Lotus Sutra.'
The fact is that we live and practice in the real world, and the real world is changing rapidly, perhaps most rapidly in the knowledge and understanding of human nature, that lies so close to our Buddhist teachings. In a sense you could say that this social research takes our personal experience of the way Buddhist values and principles shape our daily lives, and places them in a wider global context. And my argument would be that if we genuinely wish, as Buddhists, to reach out to much wider non-Buddhist Buddhist audience, then we can only be helped in that endeavour by some understanding, however peripheral that might be, of this new and immensely revealing knowledge.
But more than that, I think we gain genuine benefit from stretching our understanding in this way. Why? Because, as I've mentioned, we happen to be living in privileged times. We are witnessing if you like the slow building of a wave that is bringing immense social change. The debate and the discussion about what people want for their lives, then obvious concern for personal growth and self-realisation, the understanding of the kind of values and behaviour that enable people to feel good about their lives and their societies has long since passed out of the philosophers and religious teachers into mainstream social debate. It has becoem the stuff of everyday political discussion.
That is I believe a crucial point. Moreover it links in directly with an understanding that has always been at the very heart of a Buddhist approach to life, namely the idea that the pursuit of a sense of well-being at the individual level, has an infinitely deeper and wider significance at the level of society.
As Daisaku Ikeda, one of today's greatest thinkers and writers on Buddhist issues has expressed it;
' In an age when both society and the religious world are wrought by turmoil and confusion ( as indeed they are today ) only a teaching that gives each individual the power to draw forth his or her Buddha nature can lead all people to happiness, and transform the tenor of the times. In other words...there can be no lasting solution to the problems facing society that does not involve our individual life state.'
It is unquestionably a powerful vision and one that immensely relevant to the communities we all live in. It proposes that a movement towards a better society based on the principles of respect for the lives and values of others, and with peace and individual happiness as its objective, cannot just be created as a top down process. It has to start from the bottom up, with a profound change taking place in the lives of countless individuals gradually changing the way the whole,of society functions.
That in essence is the goal to which this book is dedicated. And I ought to add perhaps right from the start that it is written very much for people who have little or no knowledge of Budhism and who could well be as deeply sceptical as I was, about its relevance or appropriateness to a modern western way of life.
The plain fact is that we have a great opportunity to move on from the commonly-held and largely superficial stereotypes of what Buddhism is about. Because we now have this unusual and unexpected conjunction of views. They may be using different idioms and different methods, but essentially both Buddhism and now the social scientists are telling us that a greater sense of well-being at the heart of our lives is fundamentally what we are all seeking, and that there are some clearly defined ways of achieving that objective, however tough and challenging the modern world may be.
So, I'm suggesting here that it's clearly worthwhile to invest a certain amount of time and energy to clearing away those persistent stereotypes that obscure our view of what Buddhism is about, to see more clearlyt what it has to offer.
And we start by unpacking the concept of belief or faith in Buddhism. What's that all about? '
OK . So that's the end of Chapter 2. Quite a long chapter I admit and one that tries to do a lot of work. Perhaps too much work! I hope not.
I hope you managed to get to here.
And I wish you all a creative and fulfilling new year. See you next year!
William Woollard
be no lasting solution to the problems facing society that does not involve our individual life stater.been
But let me use this blog, number 9 to round off Chapter 2.
So to recap briefly, in Blog number 7 I answered the question why am I a Nichiren Buddhist? That really describes the journey I personally travelled from deepest scepticism to a profound and enduring commitment to the practice that has unquestionably affected every aspect of my life, as a father and a husband and friend and colleague at work.
In Blog number 8 I introduced the second main strand of the argument I pursue in this book, the science. and try to define the way in which the remarkable body of findings that have come out of sociological and psychological research over the past couple of decades really walk across very much the same territory as Buddhist teachings, since they are profoundly concerned with the values and behaviour that enable us to live the most creative and fulfilling lives, for ourselves, and for the societies that we inhabit.
So as I've said, let me just round of that argument in this post, because to be absolutely fair to any reader I have to ask the direct question, ' Do we need an understanding, or an awareness even, of the science, to develop an effective Buddhist practice.' We pick up the argument on p 35.
' There can only be one answer, and it's in the negative. We do not. But listen to this from the late great historian and philosopher, Arnold Toynbee,
' Science and religion need not and ought not to be in conflict. They are to complementary ways of approaching the universe mentally, in order to cope with it. '
Or this from philosopher Robert Solomon,
' Spirituality is supported and informed by science. The more we know about the world the more we can appreciate it.'
Just listen to the power of that phrase, ' spirituality is supported and informed by science!'
So they are telling us quite clearly that in order to make the very most of this rich and complex life that we are living, we benefit from both kinds of illumination, the spiritual and the scientific. That unquestionably rings true doesn't it?
And this from Tsunesaburo makiguchi, the visionary Japanese educational reformer who founded the lay Buddhist organisation that today is at the forefront of the spread of Buddhist values and beliefs into the western world,
' I could find no contradiction between science, philosophy, which is the basis of our modern society, and the teachings of the Lotus Sutra.'
The fact is that we live and practice in the real world, and the real world is changing rapidly, perhaps most rapidly in the knowledge and understanding of human nature, that lies so close to our Buddhist teachings. In a sense you could say that this social research takes our personal experience of the way Buddhist values and principles shape our daily lives, and places them in a wider global context. And my argument would be that if we genuinely wish, as Buddhists, to reach out to much wider non-Buddhist Buddhist audience, then we can only be helped in that endeavour by some understanding, however peripheral that might be, of this new and immensely revealing knowledge.
But more than that, I think we gain genuine benefit from stretching our understanding in this way. Why? Because, as I've mentioned, we happen to be living in privileged times. We are witnessing if you like the slow building of a wave that is bringing immense social change. The debate and the discussion about what people want for their lives, then obvious concern for personal growth and self-realisation, the understanding of the kind of values and behaviour that enable people to feel good about their lives and their societies has long since passed out of the philosophers and religious teachers into mainstream social debate. It has becoem the stuff of everyday political discussion.
That is I believe a crucial point. Moreover it links in directly with an understanding that has always been at the very heart of a Buddhist approach to life, namely the idea that the pursuit of a sense of well-being at the individual level, has an infinitely deeper and wider significance at the level of society.
As Daisaku Ikeda, one of today's greatest thinkers and writers on Buddhist issues has expressed it;
' In an age when both society and the religious world are wrought by turmoil and confusion ( as indeed they are today ) only a teaching that gives each individual the power to draw forth his or her Buddha nature can lead all people to happiness, and transform the tenor of the times. In other words...there can be no lasting solution to the problems facing society that does not involve our individual life state.'
It is unquestionably a powerful vision and one that immensely relevant to the communities we all live in. It proposes that a movement towards a better society based on the principles of respect for the lives and values of others, and with peace and individual happiness as its objective, cannot just be created as a top down process. It has to start from the bottom up, with a profound change taking place in the lives of countless individuals gradually changing the way the whole,of society functions.
That in essence is the goal to which this book is dedicated. And I ought to add perhaps right from the start that it is written very much for people who have little or no knowledge of Budhism and who could well be as deeply sceptical as I was, about its relevance or appropriateness to a modern western way of life.
The plain fact is that we have a great opportunity to move on from the commonly-held and largely superficial stereotypes of what Buddhism is about. Because we now have this unusual and unexpected conjunction of views. They may be using different idioms and different methods, but essentially both Buddhism and now the social scientists are telling us that a greater sense of well-being at the heart of our lives is fundamentally what we are all seeking, and that there are some clearly defined ways of achieving that objective, however tough and challenging the modern world may be.
So, I'm suggesting here that it's clearly worthwhile to invest a certain amount of time and energy to clearing away those persistent stereotypes that obscure our view of what Buddhism is about, to see more clearlyt what it has to offer.
And we start by unpacking the concept of belief or faith in Buddhism. What's that all about? '
OK . So that's the end of Chapter 2. Quite a long chapter I admit and one that tries to do a lot of work. Perhaps too much work! I hope not.
I hope you managed to get to here.
And I wish you all a creative and fulfilling new year. See you next year!
William Woollard
be no lasting solution to the problems facing society that does not involve our individual life stater.been
Thursday, 26 December 2013
my Buddhist blog
Hi Everybody,
Hope you are having a good Xmas, wherever you are. I just thought I'd use this little gap of time that boxing day provides to motor along with blog number 8. I'm really enjoying retracing this discussion in this way. With number 7 we left the story in the middle of chapter 2, and in the middle of the debate about science. I accept that it's not an easy debate, it takes a fair bit of concentration, but it seems to me to be a crucial one, because, as I say in the book, we don't practice Buddhism in a bubble. We practice in the midst of a world that is turbulent with new research in sociology and psychology that walks across very much the same ground as Buddhist teachings, namely helping us to understand what it is about our values and behaviour that enable us to live the most fulfilling and the most value-creating lives. So I would suggest, we gain in our understanding and appreciation of the ' modernity ' of Buddhist teachings, by spending a bit of time looking sideways you might say, at some of these research findings. That basically is the argument of this particular blog.
In the last one I introduced a celebrated writer on science called Stephen Jay Gould and his closely argued view that Science and Religion essentially occupy quite different dimensions in our life. That's where I pick up the story now. ( page 29 )
' Stephen Jay Gould's analysis has long been accepted as the most authoritative statement, on what obviously remains a complex and controversial issue. But that having been said, I think we could certainly put up a case, at this time, that there is...not so much a flaw in Gould's analysis, that would be goingn too far...but a gap perhaps, a lacuna. And it has arisen mainly I think as a result of the sheer volume of research that has been carried out in this area over the past ten to fifteen years. Put at it's simplest, science still cannot tackle issues of fundamental faith and belief and spirituality, and frankly isn't particularly interrested in doing so when there is so much else to explore. However over the past couple of decades science has been immensely interested in observing and analysing what might be called the ' consequences ' of belief, namely our behaviour. What we do. How we live. What values we hold. How we handle relationships. How much compassion or altruism we show towards others. How we respond to problems and challenges. what makes us angry or sad or happy or despairing? The potential lines of inquiry are endless.
And it goes without saying that if we happen to have a strong religious or spiritual belief, then that will have a powerful effect on our behaviour. What we deeply hold to be true reveals itself in every aspect of our lives, from how we think and what we say, to the actions that we take in almost every circumstance. People as we know are quite commonly prepared to die for their beliefs, that is how far our beliefs can affect our behaviour.
So in this case there is undoubtedly a big overlap between science and religion, in the sense that behaviour, influenced by profound belief is of course infinitely accessible to observation and analysis by scientists, in all its infinitely varied and manifold forms.
So why is this important?
A quiet revolution
Well in a sense you could say that we have been living through a kind of revolution over the past 20 years or so, a quiet revolution you might say, since this kind of research may take some time to yield up its findings, and is rarely if ever the stuff of headlines. But over this time the social scientists have sought to explore and to understand in ever increasing detail, the motivations and the compulsions that drive human behaviour, and their effects on our sense of self, and on how we feel about our lives. The results have been sometimes astounding, sometimes predictable, but always interesting. With immense patience and care, and on a truly objective basis, sometimes with research projects that have run, and continue to run, for many years, these social scientists have begun to put together an understanding of the nature of human life and motivation that goes way beyond anything that might have been imagined even a few decades ago.
So here it seems to me, there is a wonderfully rich and meaningful overlap to be explored. Because with religion of course...and in this case it's Buddhism that we wish to put under the microscope...it is only meaningful when its values and principles and teachings become manifest in human behaviour, otherwise it's just a matter of words, just airy philosophy. One of the most profound things ever written about Shakyamuni for example, the first historically recorded Buddha, the seed from which this great tree of Buddhism has grown, who lived around 500BCE, is that the real significance, the real purpose of his mission in this world lay precisely in his ' behaviour ' as a human being; in what he did, at least as much as in what he said.
But the question I askled was why is this important?
And the answer I think is that it gives us this great opportunity which has never been around before. It goes without saying that Buddhism does not exist in a bubble. Buddhism is daily life, and its great strength is its claim to continuing relevance despite the vast changes that have gone on in our social circumstances, because fundamentally human nature hasn't changed. So we are immensely privileged. We can, essentially for the very first time, look at the complex understanding that Buddhism has evolved of human motivation and behaviour...in the context of the learning that is emerging from the formal studies carried out across the world by the social scientists. That in essence is the something more that this book is about, that journey of exploration and comparison. Looking in detail not simply at what Buddhism has to tell us about living a full and meaningful and creative life, but looking sideways at what sociology and psychology and neuroscience have to tell us as well, so that we can see where and how they relate to one another.
A dual track
So, for the past couple of years I have been exploring as much as I could handle of the social research that has gone on in this area in recent years, and the result has been surprising. There is no question in my mind but that fundamental ideas about the nature of human motivation and behaviour that Buddhism has been teaching for centuries, find the most interesting and stimulating echoes and parallels and amplifications, in the studies carried out by today's social scientists. So this book pursues whiat might be called a dual track.
It is indeed a serious, committed, admittedly personal account of Buddhism in today's world, as it is manifest and expressed in the daily lives of very ordinary people holding down a day job you might say, caring for their kids, watching the ball game on a Saturday afternoon, worrying about the mortgage or the tax bill or caring for an aged relative, or whatever. Activities that we are all involved in. Buddhism that is, very much in daily life. And about the qualities that we all seek in our lives such as a stronger and more consistent sense of well-being at the core of our life, that is not so easily dismantled by challenges and problems.
What I would like to do therefore is to take a number of issues that are central to the practice of Buddhism; issues such as compassion and altruism and gratitude for example, or creating meaningful relationships, the dilemma of suffering, how we deal with destructive emotions such as anger and greed, the complex matter of ethics and morality, and so on, and look at these issues both from the Nichiren Buddhist and from the scientific point of view.
These issues aren't by any means concerned with the margins of our life are they?Most of them indeed are profoundly life-changing. The kinds of things you might say that are of the greatest significance to all of us. Buddhism as you would expect has a great deal to say about how we might approach them in a way that creates the most value for our lives and for those around us.
And now modern science offers us this immensely supportive perspective.'
Ok that's enough I think for today. As I've mentioned I think I find it quite difficult to judge what is an appropriate slug of material each time. It depends on the nature of the argument at that particular point in the journey. But no doubt you will let me know if I'm way too long. Or too short.
With my sincere gratitude for your staying with it thus far.
Best wishes,
William Woollard
The book, The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon.
Hope you are having a good Xmas, wherever you are. I just thought I'd use this little gap of time that boxing day provides to motor along with blog number 8. I'm really enjoying retracing this discussion in this way. With number 7 we left the story in the middle of chapter 2, and in the middle of the debate about science. I accept that it's not an easy debate, it takes a fair bit of concentration, but it seems to me to be a crucial one, because, as I say in the book, we don't practice Buddhism in a bubble. We practice in the midst of a world that is turbulent with new research in sociology and psychology that walks across very much the same ground as Buddhist teachings, namely helping us to understand what it is about our values and behaviour that enable us to live the most fulfilling and the most value-creating lives. So I would suggest, we gain in our understanding and appreciation of the ' modernity ' of Buddhist teachings, by spending a bit of time looking sideways you might say, at some of these research findings. That basically is the argument of this particular blog.
In the last one I introduced a celebrated writer on science called Stephen Jay Gould and his closely argued view that Science and Religion essentially occupy quite different dimensions in our life. That's where I pick up the story now. ( page 29 )
' Stephen Jay Gould's analysis has long been accepted as the most authoritative statement, on what obviously remains a complex and controversial issue. But that having been said, I think we could certainly put up a case, at this time, that there is...not so much a flaw in Gould's analysis, that would be goingn too far...but a gap perhaps, a lacuna. And it has arisen mainly I think as a result of the sheer volume of research that has been carried out in this area over the past ten to fifteen years. Put at it's simplest, science still cannot tackle issues of fundamental faith and belief and spirituality, and frankly isn't particularly interrested in doing so when there is so much else to explore. However over the past couple of decades science has been immensely interested in observing and analysing what might be called the ' consequences ' of belief, namely our behaviour. What we do. How we live. What values we hold. How we handle relationships. How much compassion or altruism we show towards others. How we respond to problems and challenges. what makes us angry or sad or happy or despairing? The potential lines of inquiry are endless.
And it goes without saying that if we happen to have a strong religious or spiritual belief, then that will have a powerful effect on our behaviour. What we deeply hold to be true reveals itself in every aspect of our lives, from how we think and what we say, to the actions that we take in almost every circumstance. People as we know are quite commonly prepared to die for their beliefs, that is how far our beliefs can affect our behaviour.
So in this case there is undoubtedly a big overlap between science and religion, in the sense that behaviour, influenced by profound belief is of course infinitely accessible to observation and analysis by scientists, in all its infinitely varied and manifold forms.
So why is this important?
A quiet revolution
Well in a sense you could say that we have been living through a kind of revolution over the past 20 years or so, a quiet revolution you might say, since this kind of research may take some time to yield up its findings, and is rarely if ever the stuff of headlines. But over this time the social scientists have sought to explore and to understand in ever increasing detail, the motivations and the compulsions that drive human behaviour, and their effects on our sense of self, and on how we feel about our lives. The results have been sometimes astounding, sometimes predictable, but always interesting. With immense patience and care, and on a truly objective basis, sometimes with research projects that have run, and continue to run, for many years, these social scientists have begun to put together an understanding of the nature of human life and motivation that goes way beyond anything that might have been imagined even a few decades ago.
So here it seems to me, there is a wonderfully rich and meaningful overlap to be explored. Because with religion of course...and in this case it's Buddhism that we wish to put under the microscope...it is only meaningful when its values and principles and teachings become manifest in human behaviour, otherwise it's just a matter of words, just airy philosophy. One of the most profound things ever written about Shakyamuni for example, the first historically recorded Buddha, the seed from which this great tree of Buddhism has grown, who lived around 500BCE, is that the real significance, the real purpose of his mission in this world lay precisely in his ' behaviour ' as a human being; in what he did, at least as much as in what he said.
But the question I askled was why is this important?
And the answer I think is that it gives us this great opportunity which has never been around before. It goes without saying that Buddhism does not exist in a bubble. Buddhism is daily life, and its great strength is its claim to continuing relevance despite the vast changes that have gone on in our social circumstances, because fundamentally human nature hasn't changed. So we are immensely privileged. We can, essentially for the very first time, look at the complex understanding that Buddhism has evolved of human motivation and behaviour...in the context of the learning that is emerging from the formal studies carried out across the world by the social scientists. That in essence is the something more that this book is about, that journey of exploration and comparison. Looking in detail not simply at what Buddhism has to tell us about living a full and meaningful and creative life, but looking sideways at what sociology and psychology and neuroscience have to tell us as well, so that we can see where and how they relate to one another.
A dual track
So, for the past couple of years I have been exploring as much as I could handle of the social research that has gone on in this area in recent years, and the result has been surprising. There is no question in my mind but that fundamental ideas about the nature of human motivation and behaviour that Buddhism has been teaching for centuries, find the most interesting and stimulating echoes and parallels and amplifications, in the studies carried out by today's social scientists. So this book pursues whiat might be called a dual track.
It is indeed a serious, committed, admittedly personal account of Buddhism in today's world, as it is manifest and expressed in the daily lives of very ordinary people holding down a day job you might say, caring for their kids, watching the ball game on a Saturday afternoon, worrying about the mortgage or the tax bill or caring for an aged relative, or whatever. Activities that we are all involved in. Buddhism that is, very much in daily life. And about the qualities that we all seek in our lives such as a stronger and more consistent sense of well-being at the core of our life, that is not so easily dismantled by challenges and problems.
What I would like to do therefore is to take a number of issues that are central to the practice of Buddhism; issues such as compassion and altruism and gratitude for example, or creating meaningful relationships, the dilemma of suffering, how we deal with destructive emotions such as anger and greed, the complex matter of ethics and morality, and so on, and look at these issues both from the Nichiren Buddhist and from the scientific point of view.
These issues aren't by any means concerned with the margins of our life are they?Most of them indeed are profoundly life-changing. The kinds of things you might say that are of the greatest significance to all of us. Buddhism as you would expect has a great deal to say about how we might approach them in a way that creates the most value for our lives and for those around us.
And now modern science offers us this immensely supportive perspective.'
Ok that's enough I think for today. As I've mentioned I think I find it quite difficult to judge what is an appropriate slug of material each time. It depends on the nature of the argument at that particular point in the journey. But no doubt you will let me know if I'm way too long. Or too short.
With my sincere gratitude for your staying with it thus far.
Best wishes,
William Woollard
The book, The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon.
Monday, 23 December 2013
my buddhist blog
Hi Everybody,
Happy Xmas and all that. It's blowing a gale and a half outside so instead of browsing the shops for last-minute Xmas presents I'm in here in the warm at the keyboard composing blog number 7 in this The Case for Buddhism series. So in the past couple of posts I've said something about my personal journey from profound scepticism about the value or relevance of a Buddhist practice in the midst of the rush and bustle and competitive pressures that define our modern western way of life, to this deep and enduring commitment to and great gratitude for a practice that has enriched every aspect of my life and relationships...no question...and I'm sure the lives of those whom my life touches.
So now I want to put that on one side for the moment, and move on to the other key dimension of this journey we're on, the science. And the key question at this point is where does the science fit into the argument? Or, what has science got to do with a Buddhist practice? Let the book take up the story; (p27)
' The answer to that question is slightly more circuitous. Over recent years there has been something of a movement to link together the words Buddhism and science, as if to imply that in some way, not often explained in detail, they occupy to some extent the same or similar territories. I believe that approach to be profoundly misleading on many counts. Buddhism is not and doesn't claim to be in the least scientific in its approach to resolving the deepest issues of life. But then it doesn't need to be. On then one hand Buddhism doesn't need in any way the justification or the validation from modern science for its philosophical insights into the nature of human motivation and behaviour. They have been tested and proven over many centuries, as I've said, in the toughest laboratory of them all, the trials and tribulations of daily human life.
And on the other hand, science simply isn't equipped, even if it were interested, to deal with the area of religious belief. many scientists do of course have strong and active religious lives, but that tells us little about the relationship between science and religion, except that they can clearly co-exist. It is simply testimony if you like to the enduring power and support provided by religious thought. But the basic fact is that science doesn't do religion. Issues like faith and belief and fundamental spirituality lie beyond the range of scientific tools. You can't put courage and compassion and faith and belief into a test tube and weigh and measure them. This issue was most eloquently dealt with by the late great Stephen Jay Gould, the brilliant American palaeontologist and writer on science, who famously coined the definitive acronym on this subject. That acronym is NOMA. It stands briefly for ' non-overlapping magisteria' which is simply a somewhat academic or high-flown way of saying that science and religion occupy quite different dimensions in our life.
However academically off-putting and inaccessible that particular definition might be, we know instinctively that it's accurate don't we? It makes complete sense on a sort of workaday pavement-level basis. We know full well that we live in a world that is dominated by science and technology, and we know the colossal benefits we derive from that situation. No one would want in any way to question that. But we also know, if we give it a moment's thought, that academic science is only a very small and highly specialised part of what we all know. Most ofm our knowledge about ourselves and our relationships comes from our own experience of life. We learn about life you might say, from life itself.
We also know that we don't turn to science when it comes to some of the biggest and most puzzling questions of all. Questions such as why are we here? Or is there a fundamental purpose to life? Or what is the meaning of suffering? Or what happens to an item called me after death? We may not ask those questions very often, but that's not the point. The fact is that when we do, we don't turn to science for the answers, we turn to a completely different dimension of our experience. And we happen to call that dimension religion...which does attempt to give us answers.
So, I would argue, we have a clear need for both kinds of inspiration and illumination, if we are to make the very most of this remarkable universe that we inhabit. As several great philosophers have commented, science is the organisation of knowledge, but wisdom, in the sense of spirituality, is the organisation of life. Indeed I would argue that we need to stand up and take serious issue with scientists, when they choose to argue that in some way our lives would be richer and truer without the religious bit. It wouldn't !!'
I'm never quite sure how long to make these episodes. But let me leave this argument there for the moment. In the next blog I will take up the thread and look at the extraordinary new insights that are being offered to us by some of the latest findings in fields such as sociology and psychology, and how they might relate to some of the teachings that lie at the heart of Buddhism.
Many thanks for reading thus far.
See you again soon.
Best wishes,
William Woollard.
The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon.
scientific in its approach to resloving the deepest issues of human life. But then it doesn't need to bre
Happy Xmas and all that. It's blowing a gale and a half outside so instead of browsing the shops for last-minute Xmas presents I'm in here in the warm at the keyboard composing blog number 7 in this The Case for Buddhism series. So in the past couple of posts I've said something about my personal journey from profound scepticism about the value or relevance of a Buddhist practice in the midst of the rush and bustle and competitive pressures that define our modern western way of life, to this deep and enduring commitment to and great gratitude for a practice that has enriched every aspect of my life and relationships...no question...and I'm sure the lives of those whom my life touches.
So now I want to put that on one side for the moment, and move on to the other key dimension of this journey we're on, the science. And the key question at this point is where does the science fit into the argument? Or, what has science got to do with a Buddhist practice? Let the book take up the story; (p27)
' The answer to that question is slightly more circuitous. Over recent years there has been something of a movement to link together the words Buddhism and science, as if to imply that in some way, not often explained in detail, they occupy to some extent the same or similar territories. I believe that approach to be profoundly misleading on many counts. Buddhism is not and doesn't claim to be in the least scientific in its approach to resolving the deepest issues of life. But then it doesn't need to be. On then one hand Buddhism doesn't need in any way the justification or the validation from modern science for its philosophical insights into the nature of human motivation and behaviour. They have been tested and proven over many centuries, as I've said, in the toughest laboratory of them all, the trials and tribulations of daily human life.
And on the other hand, science simply isn't equipped, even if it were interested, to deal with the area of religious belief. many scientists do of course have strong and active religious lives, but that tells us little about the relationship between science and religion, except that they can clearly co-exist. It is simply testimony if you like to the enduring power and support provided by religious thought. But the basic fact is that science doesn't do religion. Issues like faith and belief and fundamental spirituality lie beyond the range of scientific tools. You can't put courage and compassion and faith and belief into a test tube and weigh and measure them. This issue was most eloquently dealt with by the late great Stephen Jay Gould, the brilliant American palaeontologist and writer on science, who famously coined the definitive acronym on this subject. That acronym is NOMA. It stands briefly for ' non-overlapping magisteria' which is simply a somewhat academic or high-flown way of saying that science and religion occupy quite different dimensions in our life.
However academically off-putting and inaccessible that particular definition might be, we know instinctively that it's accurate don't we? It makes complete sense on a sort of workaday pavement-level basis. We know full well that we live in a world that is dominated by science and technology, and we know the colossal benefits we derive from that situation. No one would want in any way to question that. But we also know, if we give it a moment's thought, that academic science is only a very small and highly specialised part of what we all know. Most ofm our knowledge about ourselves and our relationships comes from our own experience of life. We learn about life you might say, from life itself.
We also know that we don't turn to science when it comes to some of the biggest and most puzzling questions of all. Questions such as why are we here? Or is there a fundamental purpose to life? Or what is the meaning of suffering? Or what happens to an item called me after death? We may not ask those questions very often, but that's not the point. The fact is that when we do, we don't turn to science for the answers, we turn to a completely different dimension of our experience. And we happen to call that dimension religion...which does attempt to give us answers.
So, I would argue, we have a clear need for both kinds of inspiration and illumination, if we are to make the very most of this remarkable universe that we inhabit. As several great philosophers have commented, science is the organisation of knowledge, but wisdom, in the sense of spirituality, is the organisation of life. Indeed I would argue that we need to stand up and take serious issue with scientists, when they choose to argue that in some way our lives would be richer and truer without the religious bit. It wouldn't !!'
I'm never quite sure how long to make these episodes. But let me leave this argument there for the moment. In the next blog I will take up the thread and look at the extraordinary new insights that are being offered to us by some of the latest findings in fields such as sociology and psychology, and how they might relate to some of the teachings that lie at the heart of Buddhism.
Many thanks for reading thus far.
See you again soon.
Best wishes,
William Woollard.
The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon.
scientific in its approach to resloving the deepest issues of human life. But then it doesn't need to bre
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