Revolution

The revolutionary rhetoric of the 1960s and 70s was replaced by the pragmatism of the 1980s and 90s. And the pragmatism of the 1990's has had to give way to the onslaught of the media environment, which has such an influence on many people's concerns. This is an environment of ever shifting sands.

Violent extremists have monopolised the language of changing the world and the rest of us have to make do with finding solutions to a management problem. Use of resources, people-capital, creating opportunities, are the tasks now. The idealists are anti-global, anti-capitalist, anti-vivisection, anti-war, anti-consumerist, anti-technology. But where is the coherent vision for a better life. Perhaps there is one or perhaps nobody is naïve enough to put forward a political answer to everything, since the communist experiment was such a disastrous failure. I think it is reasonable to be sceptical about any great political or social solutions to the world's problems. I don't believe it is possible to change the world by political revolution. I agree with the Irish poet, W.B. Yeats:

“The Great Day

Hurrah for revolution and cannon-shot!

A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.

Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!

The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.”

But I do believe it is possible for human beings to change. In fact I know from experience that it is possible for human beings to change, to evolve. Therefore I see it as a noble and generous thing to try to provide conditions for as many human beings as possible to change. The first thing I can do is to try to light the fire of faith (shraddha) in the hearts of others by letting them see the fire in my own heart. The second thing I can do is come together with like-minded individuals and create a network of friendships, a spiritual community, which has a momentum of energy to carry the message of the Dharma, the Truth, down through the generations, spreading a benevolent influence throughout the world, touching hearts, transforming lives. For that to happen I don't necessarily need the language of revolution, but I think something of the fervour and passion of revolution is needed. This is a great, awesome, all-encompassing vision and it is not going to be brought to life by half-heartedness or timid goodwill. It needs energy, passion, fire. Initially that energy has to be channelled into transforming ourselves; changing our self-centredness into generosity, changing our ill-will into energy for the good, changing our resentment into confidence, changing our blaming of others into activity for the benefit of others, changing our narrow self-interest into a broader perspective.

As we change and others around us change, we gradually become, together, a vibrant spiritual community and then our real altruistic Bodhisattva work can begin in earnest, as we co-operate with each other to embody the message of the Buddha for the sake of all beings.

Refuge

“Many people, out of fear, flee for refuge to (sacred) hills, woods, groves, trees and shrines. In reality this is not a safe refuge. In reality this is not the best refuge. Fleeing to such a refuge one is not released from all suffering.” (Dhammapada, Verses 188 and 189) Here we are introduced to the image of refuge, the metaphor of going for refuge. It goes on to say: “He who goes for refuge to the Enlightened One, to the Truth, and to the Spiritual Community, and who sees with perfect wisdom the Four Ariyan truths - namely, suffering, the origin of suffering, the passing beyond suffering, and the Ariyan Eightfold Way leading to the pacification of suffering - (for him) this is a safe refuge, (for him) this is the best refuge. Having gone to such a refuge, one is released form all suffering.” (verses 190-2) A true safe refuge is something we can rely on, something dependable, something that won't let us down. A false refuge is something that we can't depend upon, that will let us down.

To go for refuge to something means it gives meaning to our lives, we live for it, we organise our lives around it, we give our energy and attention to it. To go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha means to put the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha at the centre of our lives, to organise our lives around them and to give our time and attention and energy to embodying them in our lives. But as the text says, many people, out of fear, flee for refuge elsewhere. For us it may not be sacred hills, woods, groves,, trees and shrines. We may put something else at the centre of our lives. We may give meaning to our lives in other ways; career, family, lover, money, children, possessions etc. but all these things will pass, none can be completely depended upon.

According to the Dhammapada, the only safe refuge, the only thing that can be completely depended upon, the only thing that can really give full meaning to your life is Enlightenment, Nirvana, the state of Buddhahood. One thing that is very noticeable about the Dhammapada is that it doesn't put in any qualifications, no “ifs” or “buts”. It just says this is the truth, this is the way things really are and you are left to make of it what you will.

Questions

There is an opportunity to answer a lot of questions between birth and death, but you have to ask them first.  

Life is a question.

Questions beget questions.

Questions are your best teacher.

The most profound questions are often the simplest. The most profound answers are often the simplest, too.

What happens when you die is not the question; the question is what happens when you live.

Conditioning

We are very influenced by the world around us. The views and attitudes of the time and place in which we live pervade our lives and it is extremely difficult to step back and see things from a higher or bigger perspective. We have been influenced since childhood by various views, attitudes, beliefs and conventions. Sometimes we are more under the sway of past conditioning sometimes we are more under the sway of present conditioning.

Monogamous marriage based on personal emotion is an example of a recent historical convention that has a huge impact on us and on what we conceive of as normal. The internet and social media are examples of current conditioning factors that have a huge impact on us and our sense of identity. Credit cards, advertising, nationalism are all relatively new phenomena which have had and continue to have a huge impact on us. Often we are unconscious of this and we are also often unconscious of the more personal conditioning and conventions of our upbringing which continue to influence our behaviour, attitudes and ideas; the impact of our relationship with our father and mother, the impact of any religious conditioning and so on.

All of these things are influencing us all the time and these influences will sometimes be at variance with the Buddha's teachings about skilfulness and unskilfulness. That is why it is important to become aware of how we have been and are being conditioned and influenced. Reflection, meditation and time spent alone all help with this.

Enlightenment

 

Enlightenment can be talked about in many ways. One very common way is to talk in terms of the perfection or consummation of Wisdom, Compassion and Energy. But of course we are swimming in very unfamiliar waters when we dive into the topic of Enlightenment or Nirvana. We need to come to the surface and indeed come back to earth and ask ourselves, what is the relevance of all of this to me and to my life now.

There is plenty of hatred, conflict and polarisation in the world and if we are to help to alleviate some of that we need to become aware of and deal with our own inner conflicts, which often manifest in our lives as conflict with others. There is a great deal of unhappiness, dissatisfaction and mental ill-health in the world and if we are to help we need to become aware of and learn how to deal with our own unhappiness and dissatisfaction. There is plenty of greed, craving, addiction and consumption in the world, which is leading us into more suffering. If we are to help we need to become aware of and deal with our own craving, greed and addictions. This is something of the relevance of the Buddha and his Awakening to our lives. But really we each need to individually ask ourselves the questions about what our life is for and what we want to do with our period alive and also to look with objective and kindly eyes at what we are actually doing with our lives. Self deception helps no-one.

Influence

The whole universe is interconnected and that of course includes us. There is no such thing as an isolated individual. We may experience isolation on a social or psychological level but real isolation from the rest of the living universe is not possible. We eat food which we buy in a shop where we are served by people and the food was put on the shelves by others and delivered by others and harvested and grown by others and the soil was prepared by others and the seeds provided by others and the plants grew because there was sufficient light and moisture and space. All of these things connect us to vast numbers of people and to the sun and the climate and the earth’s atmosphere and the solar system, the galaxy and beyond. We cannot be isolated from life. Even when we are dead our body returns to the earth and nourishes the plants and worms.

We are also connected to other people by virtue of influence and effect. The influence they have on us and the effect we have on them. Virtually everything we know, all our knowledge, comes from somebody else. We learn from books, from other people, parents, teachers etc., and it is a completely rare event for anyone to have an original thought and even when that does happen it is in relationship to all the thoughts others have had previously in a particular area, whether it is art or mathematics or science. We have imbibed influences since birth and we continue to imbibe them. To a large degree we are made up of influences whether from other people or the climate or the environment we live in. All these things form and shape our consciousness, affect our thoughts and emotions and are very much who we are. In a sense all we are is interconnection. There is nothing solid or substantial or fixed that we can point to and say that’s me, completely unaffected by any influence from elsewhere.

The other side of this is that we are always having an effect. We are always influencing. Some people are referred to as influential people, but, in fact, everybody is influential. It is not possible to have no effect on anybody or anything. By eating food you have bought in a shop, you have had an effect on the shop and those who work there and the whole chain of supply. I read an interview in a magazine with the CEO of Tesco’s. The point was put to him that a huge store like Tesco has a lot of power, too much power even. He said that from where he stood all the power was with the consumer and he had to be constantly attentive and sensitive to what shoppers wanted or didn’t want. Otherwise even the biggest business could collapse quite quickly. There is obviously a lot of truth in that. But more immediately than that we have an effect on people we come into contact with. We can never know how much of an effect we are having. Sometimes we say or do something quite small and it has a big effect on someone. Perhaps a little act of generosity where it was not expected or a sharp word or a flippant remark.

Meditation

Meditation is not about having big experiences. Meditation is a continuous flow of positive mental states and when we sit to meditate what is important is the effort we make not the experience we have. We may have a very pleasant experience but if we are not making an effort to take things further then it is not a good meditation. A good meditation is one in which we make an effort to change our habitual negative mental states or make an effort to maintain our positive mental states and use them as a basis for penetrating deeper into the nature of reality. Effort has to be appropriate and balanced of course. We need to know and acknowledge where we are starting from and be patient and persistent in our efforts to change.

Consumerism 2

I want to say something positive about consumerism. One of the reasons I want to say something positive about consumerism is that barring catastrophe, it is going to be with us for a long time and those who have not had the opportunity to consume the so-called good things of life are going to want to. In the foreseeable future we are likely to have more consumerism rather than less, with India, China, South America and eventually Africa stepping on to the train to go shopping with everybody else. Given that that is what we have and are likely to have, what positive possibilities does consumerism hold for us?

It has been said we are consumers rather than citizens. I was thinking about this and I came to the conclusion that it may not be such a bad thing if people were less identified with being citizens. Being a citizen implies belonging to a particular nation with all the characteristics of group mentality that that implies. It can lead to a sort of defensiveness and isolationism that is both oppressive and dangerous. Consumerism on the other hand crosses boundaries and cultures and at the level of international business it creates a world of connections and relationships that have the potential to defuse dangerous situations. On the personal level it gives a certain amount of power to the consumer. When you vote in an election you exercise some power, but also when you spend money you exercise power. You exercise power because, just as with your vote, you can make a choice. Your vote gives you a choice every four years or so to say who you want to govern or what policies you favour. The money in your pocket gives you a choice every day to say which products and companies you want to support and which you would prefer not to. Businesses, even the biggest of them, are quite sensitive to what the consumer wants and doesn’t want. It has even been noted that sometimes business is ahead of government in its thinking on issues of an ethical or ecological nature. Being consumers means we are connected to a vast international web of trade which has a positive side to it and we can exercise some power in this network of trading by making informed choices about where to spend our money. Another point worth noting is that businesses are sensitive to criticism and if you see a business doing something you think is unethical, it is worth writing a letter to point it out. Business people and politicians know that for every two people that complain there are probably another twenty who have the same complaint but stay silent.

Consumerism

In the story of the great Tibetan yogi, Padmasambhava, he encounters a monstrous character who is known as Black Salvation and also as Matarangara, which means 'the one who devours his mother'. The depiction of Black Salvation is a description of everything that is repulsive and revolting and monstrous and it is a symbolic way of saying that Samsara is repulsive and monstrous. It is a way of saying that what we have to overcome on the way to spiritual awakening is something that has tremendous power and energy and fills our world, a huge monstrous presence.

For our society I think the great monster is what is known as consumerism, or the idea of progress through consumer led growth. Why is consumerism monstrous, a Matarangara, one who devours his mother, a Black Salvation? The view, put very simply, is that happiness and fulfilment are a product of economic well-being. Your security, your contentment, is dependent on the possession of a sufficient amount of money and goods. And as our irrational minds engage with this view, our natural craving assumes that greater happiness and fulfilment is achieved by a steady accumulation of money and possessions. Also an offshoot of this view, is the view that choice is a supreme good and having choice is the equivalent of freedom. The more choice we have, the more freedom we have.

Another head of this many headed monster says everything is something to be purchased and appropriated whether it's a smart phone, an overcoat, a car or meditation, yoga and Buddhism. Individualism is also part of the logic of consumerism. Individualism leads us to consider ourselves as somehow separate from and unconnected to others. Consumerism also encourages narcissism; the tendency to see everything in terms of how it affects me and the self-centredness and vanity that goes with that.

In a culture of consumerism we are consumers before we are anything else. Before we are citizens or family members or adherents of a religious doctrine. Above all of that we are consumers, that is our identity and if we refuse that identity we will find ourselves pitted against the many headed hydra of consumerism. In Greek mythology when one of the heads of the monster Hydra is cut off, two more grow in its place. That would suggest that in encountering the many headed demon of consumerism we need a more subtle and intelligent approach. Cutting off heads that regrow doubly is no solution. In the work of overcoming the demons of the mind and the demons of the marketplace, we need intelligence and awareness, alertness and love.

Imagination

           What words obscure, imagination can clarify.

What words clarify, imagination often insists on obscuring.

Only the literal-minded need wings in order to fly.

It is essential to plumb the depths, but only if we want to scale the heights.

You cannot ascend into heaven unless your feet are firmly on the ground.

Because your feet are firmly on the ground, it doesn't necessarily mean you've arrived anywhere.

A deep understanding requires great flights of imagination.

Flights of imagination often go nowhere.

Imagination is the gateway to reality.

Metaphor is the language of imagination.

Every language has the potential for both truth and misunderstanding.

Anything that limits the imagination is a misunderstanding.

Intuition is to imagination what the spring is to the river.

Imagination is to vision what the thread is to the cloth.

The highest vision is the greatest wisdom.

The greatest wisdom is compassion.

Words divide: imagination makes whole.

Reality is undivided.

The imagination can never be chained.

Brotherhood is limited only by the imagination.

The artist sees; the great artist goes beyond seeing.

Whether you are an optimist or a pessimist there will be sunny days and cloudy days.

Rain or shine the optimist lives in sunny world.

Rain and shine the pessimist lives in a cloudy world.

You can be optimistic about the past.

Innovations are nothing new.

Sex

There are two levels to our fascination with sex. There is the level of the basic animal drive and much of civilisation is about bringing a measure of control and discipline to that. Every human society has its rules and norms to regulate this basic drive. The rules and norms can vary enormously; what is or is not acceptable can vary enormously. These rules of society are often tied in with questions of property ownership and peaceful relations between clans, tribes or nations. So that to breach the rules is not just a personal matter but something that affects the stability of the society.

The second level to our fascination with sex is more emotional and psychological. In order to have sex you have to be physically intimate with another person and this physical intimacy becomes a way into emotional intimacy. However physical intimacy is not emotional intimacy and all sorts of problems can arise when a society accepts and encourages the view that physical intimacy is emotional intimacy. Aligned with this is the view that there cannot really be emotional intimacy without physical intimacy. This is the view that has grown up in many societies over the last couple of hundred years.

Sex has become, to some extent, divorced from questions of property and alliances and has become more a question of a search for emotional fulfillment. This is the romantic ideal. The positive side of this is that people are not forced into unsuitable relationships or relationships that are repulsive to them. The downside is that it can overload one relationship with too many expectations. Especially a relationship that is sometimes built on the shaky foundations of a physical attraction and physical intimacy.

The spiritual community can help by being a further source of emotional fulfillment. When we have friends with whom we are emotionally intimate, it can take some weight off the relationship where we are also physically intimate. It helps us to lower the expectations we have of our sexual partner, which can also help us to become more content. Contentment is a state of feeling rich and fulfilled, so that there isn't a constant aching yearning for something more or someone more. If we are content and feeling emotionally rich there is less temptation for us to try to manipulate others for our satisfaction.

Communication

There is no communication without listening. There is no listening without interest. You have to be interested in the other person, in their life, in their point of view,if you are going to listen to them. If you are not interested in them or if your primary interest is in yourself and getting your opinion heard, then you won’t be able to listen.
Listening requires interest. There is no interest without awareness. In order to be interested in a person or in anything you have to be aware of that person or that thing. If you are not aware you can’t be interested and therefore can’t listen and therefore will not be in communication.

There is no awareness without silence. Silence, stillness, solitude, and reflection are what we need from time to time in order to allow our awareness to grow and expand and deepen. As Bhante Sangharakshita says in Crossing the Stream: “As music is born of silence, and derives its significance therefrom; and as a painting is born of empty space, and derives its significance therefrom; so are our lives born of silence, of stillness, of quietude of spirit, and derive their significance, their distinctive flavour and individual quality, therefrom. The deeper and more frequent are those moments of interior silence and stillness, the more rich in significance, the more truly meaningful, will our lives be. It is the pauses which make beautiful the music of our lives. It is the empty spaces which give richness and significance to them. And it is stillness which makes them truly useful.” (p.95)

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the key practice in Buddhism. It is the practice of mindfulness that brings everything else together. What we are aiming for is an inter-connected mindfulness. We need to be aware of ourselves; our thoughts, emotions, words and actions. We need to be aware of other people in the same way. We need to be aware of our environment, the objects, space, light and colour around us. We need to be aware of reality; of impermanence, of the unsatisfactoriness of worldly things, of the higher truth represented by the Buddha. But our awareness in all these areas, all these dimensions, needs to be interconnected. We need to be aware of how everything affects everything else, how everything is always part of the conditions for something else. How does our environment affect us? How do we affect our environment? What effect do other people have on us and, even more importantly, what effect do we have on other people? In what way does Reality impact on us, on our environment, on other people? What is the effect of the potential for Awakening on our lives? Asking ourselves questions and reflecting in this way we can develop an inter-connected awareness, which is an essential basis for Awakening.

When we take our awareness deeper into ourselves and further out in to the world around us, the promise is that we will experience great beauty and access to energy that is always flowing out into generous activity. This interconnected awareness is alive, rich and abundant. In symbolic terms it is golden yellow, a sun that gives warmth and nourishment everywhere equally and encourages us to grow and to emerge from the solid resistant earth of our mundane egoistic selves.

Fear

The Tantric yogis, we are told, go into the cremation grounds at night to encounter fear, to encounter ego in a very potent form. By facing fear they break through to a new level of freedom. Most of us have no need to find a cremation ground. We experience fears, large and small, all the time. Sometimes it is just the fear of being with other people or the fear of being alone. We can try to notice our fears and make use of them. By taking little risks here and there we gain a little more freedom and develop the habits of freedom and confidence.

Conflict 2

Siddhartha was sheltered by the Bodhi tree or more prosaically, his aspiration and faith gave him protection. And he needed protection because he was assailed by Mara. Mara is the personification of resistance to spiritual awakening. Firstly he was attacked by Mara’s army, then tempted by Mara’s daughters and then Mara tried to undermine his confidence. Here we have very dynamic images for hatred, craving and ignorance.

Mara’s army attacks with arrows and spears but all the missiles hurled at Siddhartha turn into flowers and settle gently at his feet. This attack of Mara’s army represents a massive internal conflict. Siddhartha’s unshakeable determination is coming up against all the forces of his psyche that resist the implications of spiritual death. This is an inevitable part of any spiritual endeavour.

We are never one hundred percent behind our spiritual aspirations and so we experience conflict and dealing with this conflict is the raw material of our spiritual practice. That's what we are working with; our aspirations and our actual desires and experience. We can take that raw material of inner conflict and do something creative with it. If we don’t deal with our inner conflict it will manifest externally and we will end up blaming other people for our lack of spiritual progress and limitations.

On one level inner conflict is a manifestation of the unintegrated psyche and the disparate parts have to come into some sort of relationship. Just as the Buddha’s awareness and faith comes into relationship with Mara’s armies and the conflict resolves into flower blossom; symbols of beauty and growth.

On another level inner conflict is a manifestation of the egoistic resistance to reality. It’s an existential thing this inner conflict. Experiencing inner conflict doesn't mean we are bad or un-spiritual or incapable of practice. It is what happens if you try to lead a spiritual life.

Either way it is more creative to recognise inner conflict for what it is and take awareness into it. We have to become acutely aware of how we resist spiritual insight and how we cause ourselves suffering. If we manage to do this thoroughly then our resistances will subside.

Habits

There are three things we need to do in relation to our habitual ways of being in order to help ourselves to develop the ability to change radically. Firstly we need to accept our habits and tendencies without condemnation. If we feel insecure, for instance, we need to accept that we feel insecure and not condemn ourselves for having that feeling. Or if we often feel angry we need to accept that and not condemn ourselves. It is just a fact – 'I often feel insecure or I often feel angry' – we can say it to ourselves and just acknowledge it as a fact. Secondly we need to become aware of how that habit or tendency manifests, how it gets expressed. For instance, insecurity might manifest as a desire to please everybody or it might manifest as anger. Anger might manifest passively in an unwillingness to listen or co-operate or it might manifest in harsh speech. Thirdly we need to take responsibility for this mental tendency or habit. We can say to ourselves – 'yes it is me, it is my mind, my mental states. It is not somebody else’s mind; it is not an inevitable consequence of any circumstances or any event. It is just my habit.'

This taking responsibility for our mental states as fully as possible is an important element in gaining insight into how our minds work and in giving ourselves the ability to change. Until we are able to see and accept that our states of mind are something we do, rather than something that happens to us, it is virtually impossible to change. When we do see deeply and clearly that our mental states are something we are doing rather than something that is happening to us, then it is as if habits dissolve in the light of that awareness. There are different levels to seeing into our own minds and we may find that we have to come back again and again to seeing the same habit or pattern at work before we finally see through it completely and it dissolves away.

We also need to see deeply and clearly that our positive mental states are something we do and don’t just happen to us. In seeing this we learn that we can choose positive states of mind, we learn that we can choose to see the world around us in different ways, we can choose to highlight the ugliness or the beauty.

Reverence

Reverence is a positive emotion, a positive state of mind. Without reverence for that which is higher and for those who embody something higher or deeper, we are left with our own consciousness as the highest and deepest in the universe. If we cannot look up to and reverence others then by implication we ourselves are the pinnacle of existence. I think reverence is closely related to gratitude. Gratitude is the response we have when we know we have received some benefit and reverence is the response we have when we know that someone or something can benefit us. If we are receptive to any spiritual teacher we will probably experience some reverence and gratitude towards them.

Reverence and devotion are not a temperamental thing, not just a quirk of nature in some people. They are inherent in human nature. Reverence is natural. To lack all sense of reverence is to be artificial rather than natural. It is an artificially adopted position probably based on some alienation from the emotions and over dependence on the intellect. Lack of reverence is an attitude conditioned by the ethos of the society we live in.

Our Western culture and conditioning can sometimes bury and thwart our natural urge towards reverence and receptivity and one of our tasks when we embark on the spiritual path is to become aware of any conditioning like that and try to get in touch with our more natural aspirations and emotions.

Awareness

''Awareness is revolutionary”. It is revolutionary in that it brings about change of a far reaching and profound nature. Awareness is naturally expansive. As we become more and more aware we become more expansive and full of life. Our energy becomes more focused and more available to us and we become more capable of taking responsibility for our lives. Our normal state is not really one of being aware, we don't really know what we're thinking, feeling, doing or saying and other people are just projections of our unconscious needs, desires and aversions. We think we're being original when all our views and opinions are received. We think we are independent of influence when our whole life is a constant swinging from one influence to the next.

Awareness gives us the possibility of a genuine individuality and more real relationships with other people. It is revolutionary in that it throws the light of truth onto our lives and wakes us up to what is really going on. Awareness transforms us. The greater the awareness the more far reaching the transformation and there is no limit to how aware we can become. Buddhahood or Enlightenment could be said to be a state of perfected awareness. Awareness of other people and awareness of the world around us shows us that we are one with humanity and one with nature. It shows us that there is beauty everywhere. Lack of awareness, which is self-centredness, is narrow in perception and sees threat and ugliness everywhere. Awareness sees beauty and optimism even in the most unlikely places.

Awareness of reality is a constant immersion in the reality that all life is process, all life is flux and change, all life is interconnected and interdependent. To be constantly immersed in this vision, to experience this all the time, is to be free from all ill-will and possessiveness. This awareness gives life a quality of lightness and a vast perspective that turns all personal fears and anxieties into absurdities and makes much of what seems important in the world around us look ridiculous. Perhaps that is why the Dalai Lama is always laughing so heartily! However because of the presence of compassion there is no arrogance or impatience in this awareness. There is rather, a tender regard for the suffering of the world, which is one's own suffering too, when one ceases to separate oneself from others and the world.

Honesty

Truthfulness is essential to the functioning of any society. Without truthfulness there can be no trust and without trust human relations fall apart and we are left with an atmosphere of suspicion and hatred. Unfortunately this is all too obvious in our brave new world of 'social' media. Truthfulness as an ethical principle has to be based on loving kindness and not used as a weapon to hurt others. And truthfulness, like all ethical principles, begins with ourselves. We need to be honest with ourselves about what we think, what we feel, what we do and what we say. To be honest with oneself is not necessarily an easy matter, it may entail facing up to unpleasant aspects of our character and it may seriously dent our pride and even possibly put us in the position of needing to apologise to others.

Truthfulness means being factual in what we say or write. It also means steering clear of exaggeration for effect. Exaggeration is one of the great building bricks of egotism. Truthfulness means not understating things and it means not deliberately omitting relevant information. Omissions can distort a narrative to the point of falsehood. And of course, truthfulness means not deliberately lying. When we tamper with the truth it is usually because we want to be seen in a particular light or we want to gain some advantage: we want to be liked, we want to be popular and bending the truth can seem to be an easy way to get attention and approval or get whatever we want. Of course if we do that habitually the person who gets attention and approval will be a fiction and in our hearts we will be lonelier than ever. For friendship to exist, for any loving human relationships to exist, there has to be honesty, otherwise we only have fictions relating to fictions, facades relating to facades, which is, to say the least, unsatisfactory.

Love

The first principle of Buddhsim, which underlies all the other principles and is the cornerstone of the whole edifice of Buddhist philosophy and practice is the principle of non-violence or to put it more positively, the principle of love. This love is what we call Metta, a love that is sustained, consistent, spontaneous and seeks no reward. This principle has implications for every aspect of our lives; most obviously it implies cooperative, forgiving and kindly relations with other people, even those we disagree with or dislike. It rules out revenge, it rules out prejudice, it rules out persecution, it rules out discrimination, it rules out character assassination, it rules out slander, it rules out doing anything to others that they don't wish us to do. It rules out all kinds of manipulation and exploitation. All of these things appear in gross forms in the world around us, but as we become more ethically sensitive we will discover their more subtle forms in our own hearts and minds. We will begin to notice the edge of competitiveness or malice in our humour. We will begin to notice the subtle emotional blackmail between lovers. We will notice all the little ways we have of undermining the achievement of others. We can multiply the examples if we pay honest attention to what goes on in the privacy our hearts and minds. Here we find our working ground and it is here in our everyday relations with others that we can begin the process of cultivating a compassionate mind.

The principle of non-violence has implications beyond our relations with other people. It applies to our relations with all living things: animals, birds, insects, trees, flowers etc. Before the Chinese invasion in 1950, Tibet was a safe haven for wildlife, and vast herds of antelope and musk deer roamed the plains together with bears, wolves, foxes and wild sheep. But all that has changed now. The American photographer and author Galen Rowell in his essay" The Agony of Tibet", writes, "the invaders made a sport of shooting indiscriminately at wildlife. In 1973, Dhondub Choedon, a Tibetan now in exile in India, reported that "Chinese soldiers go on organised hunts using machine guns. They carry away the meat in lorries and export the musk and furs to China". Important habitat for vast herds of animals was soon over grazed as the Chinese forced nomadic families into communes to raise livestock for export instead of their own subsistence. Tibetans, including the children, were forced to kill 'unnecessary animals' such as moles and marmots that vied with humans for grain and dug up valuable grazing land. Children were given a qouta for small animals to kill that, if not met, resulted in beatings and other forms of punishment." It is so sad to think of the children being conditioned to kill animals. A stark illustration of how totally different a materialistic outlook is from a spiritual and non-violent outlook.

The principle of non-violence or love extends also to our attitude to the natural world. The Thai monk Prayudh Payutto has said that it is best to avoid using the word 'environment' in our concerns for ecology. He feels the word 'environment' betrays its origins in Western attitudes that separate human beings from the rest of nature. Nature includes us. Ecology includes us. When we really begin to understand and see this then we see that the effort we make to transform ourselves is ecological work and that all our activities have ecological implications. If a river dries up it is relatively easy to see the ecological implications. If human hearts dry up the ecological implications are far greater. We must keep our hearts moist with the life-giving waters of love.

Karma

To understand what Karma is we need to understand a very fundamental Buddhist teaching, the teaching of conditionality. After the Buddha's Enlightenment experience he tried to communicate what he had seen and understood in many different ways. One of the ways he used to explain his insight is formulated as the law of conditionality, which very simply states that everything arises in dependence upon conditions. In the texts it says "this being that becomes, from the arising of this that arises. This not being that does not become, from the ceasing of this that ceases." so everything comes into being in dependence upon preceding conditions. This applies to everything: a thought, a giraffe, a mountain, a war, a planet, a universe. This would appear to be a very obvious and simple assertion, that everything arises in dependence upon conditions. However, simple and obvious as it may seem, it is the most fundamental teaching of Buddhism and it has vast implications. Karma is just one kind of conditionality.

There are five kinds; there is conditionality on the inorganic level, the level covered more or less by the laws of physics. There is conditionality on the organic level, the level of biology. There is conditionality on the lower mental level involving such things as perceptions and instincts. Then there is conditionality on the level of intentional action which is the Karmic level and above that is the transcendental, Dharmic level of conditionality. The reason I have enumerated this rather technical list is simply to make the point that Karma does not explain everything that happens to us. There are a multitude of conditions at work all the time and it is impossible to separate out what results from our own intentional actions and what results from other kinds of conditionality. We need to beware of simplistic understandings of Karma. It is not a model of linear cause and effect and it is not an exhaustive explanation of everything that happens to everyone. Everything arises in dependence upon conditions but not all conditions are Karmic.

Put simply Karma is intentional action. Buddhism teaches an ethics of intention. Traditional ethical systems in the West speak in terms of 'good' and 'bad'. Buddhism doesn't think in terms of good and bad actions. It focuses instead on the intention behind the action. Indeed the terms good and bad are alien to Buddhist ethical teaching, instead we use the terms skilful (kusala) and unskilful (akusala). A skilful or ethical action is one that arises out of a mind that is loving, generous and wise and an unskilful or unethical action is one that arises out of a mind that is selfish, hateful and ignorant. Actions are understood to be of thought, speech and body. So the law of Karma states that unskilful actions have negative consequences and skilful actions have benign and positive consequences. Difficulties, suffering and unhappiness which we experience may be due to our unskilfulness in the past i.e. may be due to our past Karma, or may be due to other conditions. Happiness and good fortune may be due to our skilfulness in the past, i.e. may be due to our past Karma, or to other conditions. But the importance of the law of Karma is not that it may explain our present circumstances or help us to analyse the past. The importance of the law of Karma is that it allows us to shape the future and, because all things are interconnected, how we shape our own future inevitably affects others and even the whole planet.

Human Salvation

The previous post was about the problem of human ignorance ortherwise known as egotism. This post is a hint at the solution to the problem.

We are self conscious, we are human beings and that spark of consciousness is what can save us from the excesses of ignorance. We have the choice to eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge, to borrow an image from elsewhere. We have the choice to do something with our awareness. What we can do with our awareness is develop it. We can evolve further. We can make the choice to evolve our awareness and dissolve the fetters of ignorance, neurotic greed and hatred. We can embark on what has been called the path of the higher evolution, that is the evolution of consciousness or awareness. This is what the spiritual life is about, you could say this is what the truly human life is about and this is the long term and fundamental solution to the problem of human destructiveness. This is the radical solution in that it goes to the roots of the problem.

Human Ignorance

Perhaps the greatest issue facing us in the world today is how to stop destroying the planet and how to begin to reverse some of the damage we have already done. One of the reasons we have done this to ourselves and to our home, the planet Earth, is because we, the human race, have been and continue to be ignorant of the connections between things, ignorant of how all life is interconnected and interdependent. We have been ignorant of the very existence of an ecosystem. And it would be a great mistake for us to continue this ignorance into our search for solutions. It would be a mistake for us to think of environmentalism as concerned with a particular aspect of life. It would be a mistake to think that environmental issues were separate from issues of war or poverty or economics or politics or leisure or work or spiritual life. To think of environmental issues as separate in that way would be to continue the ignorance that has brought us into this plight in the first place. The social, the spiritual and the ecological are not separate spheres of knowledge and activity, they are intimately and irrevocably interconnected and it is ignorance of this that leads us to behave in ways that are destructive to the planet and therefore destructive to ourselves. This ignorance comes about because human beings have developed self-reflexive consciousness. We are aware and we are aware that we are aware.

This consciousness, which is what distinguishes us from the animals, is our greatest asset, our greatest gift and perhaps our greatest curse. Because of this consciousness of self there is a consciousness of other and a consciousness of insecurity in relation to other. The consciousness of self is crude, rudimentary even, and is closely identified with the body, with things, with people as things and with a rigid world view. This self is constantly buffeted by the winds of change externally and internally by the primitive forces of survival and reproduction. So a sense of insecurity is an inevitable accompaniment of emerging self-consciousness. 

The immature ego is ignorant of interconnection and experiences itself as separate, and as fixed and unchanging. This according to Buddhism is the basic spiritual ignorance, experiencing ourselves as separate and as fixed and unchanging. It is this basic spiritual ignorance that gives rise to the greed for possessions and people to give us a sense of security and it is this basic spiritual ignorance which gives rise to hatred and a violent rejection of anything that appears to threaten this separate fixed and unchanging self. Here we can see the source of all human conflict, the source of consumerism, the source of overpopulation, the source of our blind destruction of our own environment.

Media

We are influenced by what we take in and we need to be discriminating about what we allow ourselves to be influenced by. Those who create news media and TV programmes and advertising can be quite ruthless in their quest to grab our attention and to influence us. They employ all sorts of subtleties and however sophisticated we think we are, we get caught. We are influenced. And often, if not usually, we are being manipulated negatively – our greed or our hatred is being encouraged and developed. Take for instance, a news headline. It's important that we don't just go along with what is fed to us but instead ask yourself why that particular story has been given prominence and why that particular headline. Is it simply because it is the most important thing that is happening in the country or the world, or is somebody trying to manipulate you or even exploit you in some way? The point here is to be discriminating about what input we expose ourselves to and if we are really discriminating, we will reduce input because to be frank, most of the fruit to be found in 'the forest of media' is slightly rotten and will only make us sick.

Buddha's Vision

One of the greatest influences the Buddha has had is in the area of ethics and positive emotion. Buddhism has encouraged and enabled people to develop great positivity and give expression to it through generosity, hospitality and good humour. This is the relatively superficial view of the Buddha's influence.

On a deeper level the Buddha has communicated to people a meaningful vision of existence. This vision of existence spoke to and moved people during the Buddha's lifetime and it still speaks to and moves us today. This is a vision of the conscious evolution of individual consciousness into the great expansiveness of Enlightenment. It is a vision of the interdependence and interpenetration of all life. It is a vision of the great flow and flux of life, myriad conditions giving rise to further conditions. It is a vision of of the ability of the individual to step into this great flow and flux of life and give it conscious direction, through actions of body, speech and mind. It is a vision of the spiritual growth and development of the individual. It is a vision of a great many individuals choosing to pursue the path to Enlightenment together, in the unity of spiritual community. It is a vision of self-aware compassionate activity on a cosmic scale. A vision of life fulfilling its highest destiny.

Listening

There can be no communication without listening. Occasionally I have done mediation work for people who have come into conflict and it is very noticeable in those situations that the missing ingredient is listening. Because one or both people are not listening there is no communication and when the ingredient of listening is brought back into the mix very often the problems diminish quite quickly. Ironically the only time when I’ve seen this fail completely was when one of the parties was someone who spent a lot of their time facilitating communication workshops. There is no Communication without listening. There is no listening without interest. You have to be interested in the other person – in their life, in their point of view – if you are going to listen to them. If you are not interested in them or if your primary interest is in yourself and getting your opinion heard, then you won’t be able to listen. Listening requires interest. There is no interest without awareness. In order to be interested in a person or in anything you have to be aware of that person or that thing. If you are not aware you can’t be interested and therefore can’t listen and therefore will not be in communication. There is no awareness without silence. Silence, stillness, solitude, and reflection are what we need from time to time in order to allow our awareness to grow and expand and deepen.

Dying

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her book “On Death and Dying” outlines various stage that a dying person goes through in relation to the inevitable fact of their death. She says there is...

• a stage of Denial and Isolation
• a stage of Bargaining
• a stage of Depression
• and finally a stage of Acceptance.

Now Dr Kubler -Ross was addressing herself to the difficulty that terminally ill patients have in accepting their situation. But what we have to remind ourselves of perhaps is that there is no such thing as a person who is not dying. It is not the case that only the terminally ill are dying. Most of us are still at the Stage of Denial with regards to dying. It appears to be so far in the future that we maintain the irrational feeling that it won't happen to us. Of course we all know that we will die and that everybody dies but it is rarely a factor that influences how we live our lives. We often ignore the message of Death, not realising that it will only enhance our lives.

Being present at someone else's death is one way that we get a powerful reminder of mortality and impermanence. This can help us to focus on what is important, significant and meaningful in life. This was what happened for me at the time of my mother's death – I was reminded of what was meaningful in life.

God

The concept of an all-powerful omniscient deity who has to be obeyed under threat of terrible punishment is a concept that has gripped and shaped our collective psyche for many generations. And it is a concept that still carries enormous power in the world around us and has affected many if not all of us, and affected us deeply. As Buddhists we have to free ourselves from the powerful grip of this God concept. What this often means is blasphemy and rebellion against authority. To be free to live a truly spiritual life we have to stop being the obedient children of this tyrannical father God. So we learn disobedience. Just, as in the same way adolescents rebel against their parents in their bid for the freedom of adulthood, so, disobedience to God and to the decrees of God is the adolescent stage of the spiritual life. And as such it is an important and essential stage of the spiritual life.

Now it is easy to fool ourselves that we are free from the fear of God and free from the grip of this God concept when in fact we may still be simply in the stage of adolescent rebellion against it. And when we are in this stage of rebellion we may see the power of the tyrant, as it were, all about us. We have antennae that read everything in terms of authority or freedom. And anything that smacks of authority is to be rejected. We may be like the adolescent who rejects everything that is to do with the past, maybe rejects all art and music or literature of past generations, because it is associated with the past, and in that way throwing out the baby of excellence, as it were, with the bathwater of restrictions.