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.

Happiness

     Everyone wants to be happy. According to all the research, what  makes people most happy is their connections with other people. To have a sense of belonging to a loving family or loving community is what makes us happy and apparently adds as much as 10 years to life expectancy. Before I became a Buddhist I was very self-sufficient and cultivated independence and self-sufficiency. This was not a bad thing, but it did take me many years of practising Buddhism before I realised experientially, that I did need other people – that my spiritual practice was nothing without other people and that the family of Sangha really was a blessing and a boon in my life. I can say now that I am happy most of the time and I believe this is largely due to being part of this alive spiritual community of Triratna. Bhante Sangharakshita says in Wisdom beyond Words that there is only one thing we need in order to be able to give to others. We need “to love ourselves and know that we are loved by others. Appreciate ourselves and know that we are appreciated by others”. This is also what we need in order to be happy.

Life

Life is abundant. Life is like a tropical rainforest or a Niagara falls – it rolls on relentlessly and is a flourishing abundant cornucopia –producing and reproducing endlessly. Life cannot be stopped, it cannot be contained and restrained. But we want to control life. Our fears and insecurities lead us to want to control life as much as possible. We even want to control the future.

EM Forster –the English writer – said:  “ We can spend our whole life preparing to live” . And John Lennon said  “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans” . In other words the urge to control life and make it secure and comfortable can lead us to miss out on actually living our lives. We can spend a lot of time and energy trying to create an imagined future or trying to protect ourselves from a feared future and in the meantime our life is almost on hold.

But as Sangharakshita puts it in his poem of the same name – Life is King.

Hour after hour, day

After day we try

To grasp the Ungraspable, pinpoint

The Unpredictable. Flowers

Wither when touched, ice

Suddenly cracks beneath or feet. Vainly

We try to track birdflight through the sky trace

Dumb fish through deep water. Try

To anticipate the earned smile the soft

Reward, even

Try to grasp our own lives. But life

Slips through our fingers

Like snow. 

Life cannot belong to us. 

We belong to Life. 

Life

Is King.

 The great Albert Einstein is quoted as saying:

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Mindfulness is the Buddhist way of living your life as though everything is a miracle. For Buddhists it is not the walking on water that is a miracle, it is the simple fact of walking.  When we have mindfulness and when we have love, we have everything and without needing to control, we are able to connect to the pulsing heart of life.