The difference between a Buddha and an ordinary person, like us, is that an enlightened being knows who they are and we do not. A Buddha realises their true nature because they have reconnected with their innate Wisdom Mind. Buddhas work for the ultimate benefit of others because of their Infinite Heart of Compassion.
We, on the other hand, have no clue what or who the hell we are. You might say we are suffering from the most profound kind of amnesia. It’s like we are wandering about aimlessly and have forgotten who we truly are. We have lost our memory completely and, instead of looking inwards to discover the truth about ourselves and our incredible potential, we create a surface personality to present to the world, to protect ourselves somehow, to show that we do actually know what’s going on, and that we are in control.
Whatever we don’t remember, we simply invent – personality, role, hopes, fears, aspirations…
Look about you and you may notice an intiguing paradox about others: they are busy reinventing themselves on the surface, and yet they have a deep thirst for spiritual self-realisation.
No one, not even a Buddha, knows exactly why this veil of amnesia has descended upon beings. But it appears to be all-pervasive and universally disturbing. It’s as if there has been a cosmic train-wreck and the people have just drifted off into the world, stunned, blank, and desperately trying to put the pieces back together.
We are suffering.
Because we are ignorant of the truth of who we really are, we appear to waste much of our time searching externally for hints and any shred of evidence that may help us solve the eternal mystery: Who am I? What’s going on? How did I get here? What is the purpose of my existence?
We turn to psychotherapists, spiritual gurus, mediums… anyone… in our search for help with our identity crisis. We even allow our peers and loved ones to define who they think we should be – we would try almost anything rather than take personal responsibility, turn our minds inward, and do the work ourselves.
Of course we all need help to guide us through what will be the most profound and exciting exploration of our lives. But who can we trust? The teachings suggest that we find someone who has already realised their own True Nature, a living Buddha. Even in this turbulent age there are many. They shine like diamonds on a rubbish heap. We only have to choose one we can connect with and who will accept us as their disciple.
The buddhas see our suffering and our longing to reveal the truth about who we really are. They recognise it for exactly what it is – the Universal Buddha Nature in each being stretching and yawning, beginning to wake up from its deep sleep, just starting out along the path to full enlightenment. The buddhas know the way and understand their job is to guide us.
However, we must also trust our Inner Teacher to guide us. No matter how powerful the Outer Teacher is – even if the Buddha himself were alive and guiding us – they could not do the work for us, they couldn’t make us enlightened.
Ultimately, enlightenment comes from within. We just need a skillful helping hand. Our True Nature is longing to awaken. It will happen. That’s exactly what the Buddha Nature does… it wakes up! It’s the most natural thing in the world!
However, many many human beings are not yet sufficiently aware of their Natural Mind or interested in its potential. But when they are ready, help will be at hand, in abundance.
But chances are, if you are reading this, you are already on the path to awakening.
Authentic mainstream Buddhist teachers, therefore, do not look for new students or converts to their new ‘ism’. Ultimately, there is even nothing called Buddh-ism. It is a universal, living lineage, a Wisdom Tradition that holds - when individual beings are ripe for these teachings - they will find them.
Then, and only then, can the mists of ignorance and amnesia begin to lift and eventually be dispelled for once and for all.
May all beings take a little break from the exhausting busyness of addiction and aggression.
May we all discover there’s so much more to life than attachment and aversion.
May I dispel the darkness of ignorance, and may we all remember our True Name.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
aggression
When we are not running after certain desirable things, the Buddha discovered, we are prone to running away from the things we do not want [but which come our way nonetheless].
This also leads to a profound state of unhappiness.
We become exhausted and worn down by seemingly always meeting the very circumstances we wish to avoid. A new negative pattern, a strong habitual tendency, is born within our fragile ego-mind. As usual, we blow it out of all proportion and fixate onto it.
Now we dwell in a paranoid state of dreading that which may never even come our way. We become worriers, ever-watchful, guarding our ego-selves against the unwanted dreaded bogey-man.
I expend precious energy avoiding like the plague anything and everything I feel may possibly bring me suffering. And, if my repulsive scowls and growls don’t ward off life’s unwanted visitors, woe betide all the uninvited undesirables that dare to cross my path.
Aggression, according to the Buddha, is one of humankind’s most profound obstacles to uncovering our True Nature. It is never helpful. It can only lead to a negative outcome. Reacting aggressively always makes things worse and is a hard habit to break.
For this reason, the Buddha’s core teachings were dedicated to cutting through aggression. Each one of us can and must eventually achieve this by disarming, pacifying and stabilising ourselves. Ultimately, the teaching goes, I personally must make a solemn vow to bring about world peace and harmony – starting with me.
The way of the Buddha is perhaps the most challenging assault on the ego. It goes against all that we believe in.
In our current way of seeing things we have a primary duty of self-preservation and self-defense. We practise fight or flight, just like our animal cousins. But we are not merely animals. Fear should not dominate our lives like that.
We must learn the crucial difference between my ego and my true self.
Leading by example, I must learn to observe my body, speech and mind.
I must learn to perfect these methods of mindfulness, and from moment to moment I will consciously work towards total non-violence.
The good news is that this sacred goal is actually achievable. Many saints, and masters, and ordinary people like you and me have done it.
It is not even a question of becoming a Buddhist.
As human beings, we must all learn to go way beneath the apparently crazy, chaotic, and almost unnatural surface energy of the mind. We must learn to go deep into the heart of the enlightened mind, the Natural Mind. Once we connect with the stability of our Core Being, we tap into the limitless [and largely unused] resources there.
Then everything is possible! Happiness. Peace of mind. Non-violence. Unconditional love.
Revealing our True Nature, according to the deepest teachings of the Buddha, is not about turning our being into something new – something it was not beforehand. Neither is it a kind of spiritual evolution… becoming enlightened. The most profound, ultimate truth is that we have always been enlightened. There has never been a single nano-second when we were not already awake - just like the Buddha.
However, the Natural Mind, our Buddha Nature, is temporarily obscured. At the moment, we are unable to perceive its luminous primordial purity. It’s as if our Core Being is covered up, like a dust sheet over a priceless antique, or a precious wish-fulfilling jewel that has become dull, smeared with the darkest slime, the filth of countless lifetimes of neglect and disuse.
In our case, the two obscurations that prevent our Natural Mind from spontaneously radiating benefit for all beings, are Addiction and Aggression, also known as Attachment and Aversion.
Whatever we call these pair, they are ruining our lives! Although we claim not to want suffering, we run headlong towards it. We experience suffering acutely, yet we do nothing about its causes.
Our state of mind is the key to our lasting happiness.
When I react to the world with aggression, I reduce myself to the level of a trapped animal or some kind of caveman. If only I could remember my true nature - how it could never ultimately be harmed, in any way whatsoever. My view of life would be so different.
Maybe I could finally realise a few much-needed home truths:
There’s more to me than meets the eye.
Aggression makes things worse.
The more stable I am, the happier I become.
Ultimately, there is nothing to fear.
This also leads to a profound state of unhappiness.
We become exhausted and worn down by seemingly always meeting the very circumstances we wish to avoid. A new negative pattern, a strong habitual tendency, is born within our fragile ego-mind. As usual, we blow it out of all proportion and fixate onto it.
Now we dwell in a paranoid state of dreading that which may never even come our way. We become worriers, ever-watchful, guarding our ego-selves against the unwanted dreaded bogey-man.
I expend precious energy avoiding like the plague anything and everything I feel may possibly bring me suffering. And, if my repulsive scowls and growls don’t ward off life’s unwanted visitors, woe betide all the uninvited undesirables that dare to cross my path.
Aggression, according to the Buddha, is one of humankind’s most profound obstacles to uncovering our True Nature. It is never helpful. It can only lead to a negative outcome. Reacting aggressively always makes things worse and is a hard habit to break.
For this reason, the Buddha’s core teachings were dedicated to cutting through aggression. Each one of us can and must eventually achieve this by disarming, pacifying and stabilising ourselves. Ultimately, the teaching goes, I personally must make a solemn vow to bring about world peace and harmony – starting with me.
The way of the Buddha is perhaps the most challenging assault on the ego. It goes against all that we believe in.
In our current way of seeing things we have a primary duty of self-preservation and self-defense. We practise fight or flight, just like our animal cousins. But we are not merely animals. Fear should not dominate our lives like that.
We must learn the crucial difference between my ego and my true self.
Leading by example, I must learn to observe my body, speech and mind.
I must learn to perfect these methods of mindfulness, and from moment to moment I will consciously work towards total non-violence.
The good news is that this sacred goal is actually achievable. Many saints, and masters, and ordinary people like you and me have done it.
It is not even a question of becoming a Buddhist.
As human beings, we must all learn to go way beneath the apparently crazy, chaotic, and almost unnatural surface energy of the mind. We must learn to go deep into the heart of the enlightened mind, the Natural Mind. Once we connect with the stability of our Core Being, we tap into the limitless [and largely unused] resources there.
Then everything is possible! Happiness. Peace of mind. Non-violence. Unconditional love.
Revealing our True Nature, according to the deepest teachings of the Buddha, is not about turning our being into something new – something it was not beforehand. Neither is it a kind of spiritual evolution… becoming enlightened. The most profound, ultimate truth is that we have always been enlightened. There has never been a single nano-second when we were not already awake - just like the Buddha.
However, the Natural Mind, our Buddha Nature, is temporarily obscured. At the moment, we are unable to perceive its luminous primordial purity. It’s as if our Core Being is covered up, like a dust sheet over a priceless antique, or a precious wish-fulfilling jewel that has become dull, smeared with the darkest slime, the filth of countless lifetimes of neglect and disuse.
In our case, the two obscurations that prevent our Natural Mind from spontaneously radiating benefit for all beings, are Addiction and Aggression, also known as Attachment and Aversion.
Whatever we call these pair, they are ruining our lives! Although we claim not to want suffering, we run headlong towards it. We experience suffering acutely, yet we do nothing about its causes.
Our state of mind is the key to our lasting happiness.
When I react to the world with aggression, I reduce myself to the level of a trapped animal or some kind of caveman. If only I could remember my true nature - how it could never ultimately be harmed, in any way whatsoever. My view of life would be so different.
Maybe I could finally realise a few much-needed home truths:
There’s more to me than meets the eye.
Aggression makes things worse.
The more stable I am, the happier I become.
Ultimately, there is nothing to fear.
addiction
This human life of ours is so precious and rare. We hardly know just how special an opportunity it is.
We are born with the capacity to become self-aware. But somehow we have misunderstood reality almost completely. We have turned that self-awareness into self-obsession.
When I live in the realm of the Ego, I am ignoring my True Nature.
I quickly become preoccupied with my ego-self. Even subconsciously, I become obsessed with my own personal happiness. That is not an entirely bad thing, however. Of course, I must look after myself. But, when I do it to the exclusion of others I am missing the meaning of life entirely. I am truly wasting this precious opportunity.
In my pursuit of happiness, I misguidedly waste a lot of time and energy running after and grasping onto whatever I imagine will bring me lasting contentment: people, experiences, intoxication, food, wealth… The list is endless, and will occupy us our whole life – maybe even lifetime after lifetime.
The quest for happiness becomes deeply ingrained in my psyche. So much so that I devote myself to it tirelessly – the quest first becomes an obsessive pattern, then a compulsive Habitual Tendency. The search for happiness becomes such an integral part of what we do, eventually we identify with it so strongly and so naturally it simply becomes who we are.
Like a drowning man clutching at a leaf on the surface of the lake, our grasping knows no reason. We soon discover that the endless wish-list of distraction and desire cannot fulfill us. However, our grasping is so strong we dare not let go, perhaps for fear of the abyss, even when our body hurts and suffers tremendously. Withdrawal symptoms set in and we feel miserable and hopeless. Yet another of our schemes has backfired.
This is not to say I would be much happier without loved ones or food, for instance. On the contrary. Life may offer us many healthy options if only we didn’t become addicted to them.
I must acknowledge how addictive I am. My distracted small-mindedness, and even my physical body, is prone to craving. Then, if the object of my desire actually delivers a little happiness and pleasure, I am hooked!
In the case of drug and alcohol addiction this is very clear. But the same principle applies to a host of supposedly less extreme situations too – relationships, food, work…
Looking deeply into my own preoccupations and addictions, I must learn to shine the pure light of awareness on what I see within.
Soon I may come to a clear insight about my own addictive nature.
Every being wishes to have lasting happiness. So we all share that in common. But human beings, while having tremendous potential and strengths, are also very fragile indeed.
Our ego-mind longs for contentment for a variety of unhealthy reasons. Perhaps I feel empty inside and look externally for something to fill that void. Maybe someone else is feeling profoundly incomplete and desperately wants a relationship – an ‘other half’ – to make them whole again. For some people the problem is boredom; we seek insatiably for newness, freshness, anything to relieve the post-modern jaded malaise – travel, shopping, sexual partners, hobbies, even spirituality.
Drug addicts are just like me. Whether an addict becomes hooked on drugs to relieve suffering or just for entertainment. I must recognize that we are all like that.
Some day, hopefully soon, I will recognize my own addictions and slowly begin to find a solution that works for me.
It could be I have to cut through the whole sorry mess in an instant – quit, go cold turkey, temporarily suffer the withdrawal, avoid all future contact with that substance or person. Or simply seeing the problem clearly, perhaps from a different angle entirely, might prove extremely helpful in other cases. It could be that I can have a much healthier relationship with that person or thing – not cut them out of my life entirely, but learn to be with them in a different way; more moderate, less grasping, more mindful of the consequences of completely losing myself in the same old way again.
Who knows? I may even find myself in the process.
The teachings of the Buddha help us to do precisely that. They point the way towards lasting happiness. If we are ready, willing and able to walk that path ourselves we will discover that the happiness we have sought externally for aeons was already inside each one of us all along. We only had to realize that truth by turning our mind inwards and revealing our inner happiness which is inexhaustible and limitless. That internal source of happiness has many names. It is known as our Buddha Nature, our True Nature, the Natural Mind.
Once we connect with it permanently, we unleash its vast qualities of Love, Compassion and Wisdom. When these energies start to flow, there is no stopping them. Because of Wisdom, we come to see ourselves and all phenomena as they truly are. There is no more grasping. We are completely open and content. Our focus has completely switched from ourselves to others. Love and Compassion drive us to work tirelessly for the benefit of others.
Nolonger self-obsessed, the ego is first diminished, then eradicated entirely.
We ourselves are now completely and vibrantly awake.
This is the day we have become enlightened.
We have become a Buddha!
We are born with the capacity to become self-aware. But somehow we have misunderstood reality almost completely. We have turned that self-awareness into self-obsession.
When I live in the realm of the Ego, I am ignoring my True Nature.
I quickly become preoccupied with my ego-self. Even subconsciously, I become obsessed with my own personal happiness. That is not an entirely bad thing, however. Of course, I must look after myself. But, when I do it to the exclusion of others I am missing the meaning of life entirely. I am truly wasting this precious opportunity.
In my pursuit of happiness, I misguidedly waste a lot of time and energy running after and grasping onto whatever I imagine will bring me lasting contentment: people, experiences, intoxication, food, wealth… The list is endless, and will occupy us our whole life – maybe even lifetime after lifetime.
The quest for happiness becomes deeply ingrained in my psyche. So much so that I devote myself to it tirelessly – the quest first becomes an obsessive pattern, then a compulsive Habitual Tendency. The search for happiness becomes such an integral part of what we do, eventually we identify with it so strongly and so naturally it simply becomes who we are.
Like a drowning man clutching at a leaf on the surface of the lake, our grasping knows no reason. We soon discover that the endless wish-list of distraction and desire cannot fulfill us. However, our grasping is so strong we dare not let go, perhaps for fear of the abyss, even when our body hurts and suffers tremendously. Withdrawal symptoms set in and we feel miserable and hopeless. Yet another of our schemes has backfired.
This is not to say I would be much happier without loved ones or food, for instance. On the contrary. Life may offer us many healthy options if only we didn’t become addicted to them.
I must acknowledge how addictive I am. My distracted small-mindedness, and even my physical body, is prone to craving. Then, if the object of my desire actually delivers a little happiness and pleasure, I am hooked!
In the case of drug and alcohol addiction this is very clear. But the same principle applies to a host of supposedly less extreme situations too – relationships, food, work…
Looking deeply into my own preoccupations and addictions, I must learn to shine the pure light of awareness on what I see within.
Soon I may come to a clear insight about my own addictive nature.
Every being wishes to have lasting happiness. So we all share that in common. But human beings, while having tremendous potential and strengths, are also very fragile indeed.
Our ego-mind longs for contentment for a variety of unhealthy reasons. Perhaps I feel empty inside and look externally for something to fill that void. Maybe someone else is feeling profoundly incomplete and desperately wants a relationship – an ‘other half’ – to make them whole again. For some people the problem is boredom; we seek insatiably for newness, freshness, anything to relieve the post-modern jaded malaise – travel, shopping, sexual partners, hobbies, even spirituality.
Drug addicts are just like me. Whether an addict becomes hooked on drugs to relieve suffering or just for entertainment. I must recognize that we are all like that.
Some day, hopefully soon, I will recognize my own addictions and slowly begin to find a solution that works for me.
It could be I have to cut through the whole sorry mess in an instant – quit, go cold turkey, temporarily suffer the withdrawal, avoid all future contact with that substance or person. Or simply seeing the problem clearly, perhaps from a different angle entirely, might prove extremely helpful in other cases. It could be that I can have a much healthier relationship with that person or thing – not cut them out of my life entirely, but learn to be with them in a different way; more moderate, less grasping, more mindful of the consequences of completely losing myself in the same old way again.
Who knows? I may even find myself in the process.
The teachings of the Buddha help us to do precisely that. They point the way towards lasting happiness. If we are ready, willing and able to walk that path ourselves we will discover that the happiness we have sought externally for aeons was already inside each one of us all along. We only had to realize that truth by turning our mind inwards and revealing our inner happiness which is inexhaustible and limitless. That internal source of happiness has many names. It is known as our Buddha Nature, our True Nature, the Natural Mind.
Once we connect with it permanently, we unleash its vast qualities of Love, Compassion and Wisdom. When these energies start to flow, there is no stopping them. Because of Wisdom, we come to see ourselves and all phenomena as they truly are. There is no more grasping. We are completely open and content. Our focus has completely switched from ourselves to others. Love and Compassion drive us to work tirelessly for the benefit of others.
Nolonger self-obsessed, the ego is first diminished, then eradicated entirely.
We ourselves are now completely and vibrantly awake.
This is the day we have become enlightened.
We have become a Buddha!
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