A Simple Life

Our craving for things is being encouraged all the time by advertisers. That is their job and they are very very good at it. We may think we are impervious to advertising but the advertisers know better. So we need to be aware that our wants are not just our wants, they are the wants that we have been persuaded to have. Often what we want is what others want us to want. By living a simple life with deliberately few wants we remove ourselves from the sphere of influence of the advertisers to some extent and get to experience our craving as craving and our needs as needs. A simple life is also more ecologically sustainable and of course more in accord with the spirit of going forth.

Ecology

Ecology includes us. Nature includes us. What we do to ourselves we do to nature. What we do to ourselves, we do to the ecology of the planet. It is not just other people that we influence. We influence the whole planet. Our state of mind as human beings is a major factor in the ecology of the world. Much work in the sphere of ecology in recent years is about trying to get human beings to realise this. As Buddhists we have our part to play because we have available to us a whole toolkit to perform the work of transforming human consciousness. And transforming human consciousness is ecological work. Much of the damage we have caused to the delicate ecological balance has been due to lack of awareness. This lack of awareness was compounded by some ideologies which saw the natural world as separate from humanity and something that had been given to us to use a we wished.

This unawareness and these ideologies are no longer such a big factor, but there is still a great deal of unawareness around the issue of interconnectedness and interdependence and how each individual has an impact on the overall web of conditions. This is where the Buddhist perspective can be very helpful. The teaching of pratitya samutpada  (dependent arising) says that everything arises in dependence on conditions which in turn arise in dependence on conditions and so on until all conditions everywhere and in every time are encompassed. In other words, what pratitya samutpada shows, when we penetrate deeply into it, is that everything throughout time and space is inter-related. This is an awe-inspiring vision, which has implications on the cosmic level, and on the personal level. On the universal level it has ecological, political and life or death implications. On the personal level, where it manifests as the law of karma, it is a way to understand and penetrate more deeply into our minds. If we can work with pratitya samutpada we may find a bigger perspective opens up for us and we gradually move away from the narrow linear cause/effect interpretation of reality and come more and more to see everything in terms of interconnection or inter-relatedness. If we can do this kind of work on our own minds, our own emotional and mental states, then we will be doing ecological work at the deepest level, transforming the structure of consciousness. And it could be argued that a transformation in the structure of human consciousness is in the final analysis the only answer to the problem of a consciousness that blindly destroys it’s own nourishment.

Money

What is money? Perhaps we know how we feel about money but do we really know what money is? Money is not pieces of paper. Those pieces of paper or the numbers on your bank statement represent something, but what do they represent? Mainly what money represents is energy. It is the energy of production and trade and money is a convenient way of exchanging products and services without having to resort to barter every time. The money in your bank account or wallet in some way represents some of your energy. You have expended energy in some way and so much money has come to you. And it is lying there with unrealised potential, latent energy. What you do with it is buy somebody else’s energy or if you save it in the bank, you in effect, give it to someone else to use.

Money is not a thing. It is a movement of energy, with potential for creation and destruction. Money is full of possibilities. That’s why we like it so much. Our attitude to money can be seen as our attitude to energy and potential and possibility.

Another thing about money is that there is no security in it. It is a symbol of security, and a very potent symbol, but money itself is almost the opposite of secure. Security brings up an image of something fixed, safe, comfortable, but money is fluid, moving, never quite what it seems.

No Hope For Buddhists

The chief virtues in Christianity are Faith, Hope and Charity. Buddhism has some parallel with Faith in the virtue of Saddha (Shraddha - Sanskrit), which means 'placing the heart on' and indicates the aspiration to tread the spiritual path. Charity is also present in Buddhism in the virtue of Chaga or Dana, which means generosity and letting go of attachment to things.

But there is no such virtue as hope in Buddhism. This is because the Buddhist vision of reality is based on the law of conditioned co-production. What this means, simply put, is that everything in existence arises in dependence on conditions. When this is applied to the spiritual path it means that if the conditions are in place then the progress will naturally follow and there is no need for hope.

Applying this to the moral life of the individual, it becomes the law of karma, which states that all actions have consequences; skilful (kusala) actions have beneficial consequences and unskilful (akusala) actions have the opposite effect. Skilful refers to the states of mind of love, generosity and wisdom. Actions are of body, speech and mind. So when we act, or communicate or think with a mind that is free from hatred, greed, and spiritual ignorance we will experience positive consequences. This law of karma means that if we make the effort to be skilful in our thoughts, expression and actions then our spiritual progress is guaranteed and we have no need of hope. So there is no hope for Buddhists!

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.