&quote;No Worries&quote; (eBook)

Two: The Origins of Buddhism

Buddhism is not what you think. Buddhism is how you think, why you think it and what happens as a consequence of the thought process. It is about developing ways to integrate the pre-conscious, biological, nature aspect of being and the subconscious, psychological, nurture aspect of being into conscious awareness, so that this thing we call the mind can be at peace. The pre-conscious aspect includes all inherited or evolutionary genetic and other biological influences which would include the four primary drives of:

1. To survive

2. To replicate the species

3. To seek pleasure

4. To avoid pain

The subconscious aspect is the sum total of all the stored sensory data input since conception and birth that is called the conditioning process.

In its most simplistic understanding Buddhism is about developing ways to enable the thought process to move from causing harm to you, others and the world around you, towards the development of contentment, peace of mind and compassion for all living beings. It is about developing a way of life that can be lived fully without the drama of worries that arise in our everyday worldly lives that spoil it for us.

It is about taking 100% responsibility for everything you think, say and do and paying attention to the quality of your mind state and emotional experience in each moment and learning from that experience. It follows a basic principle of ‘cause and effect’ that is aligned with doing the least amount of harm possible in any situation to yourself, others and the world around you. The good news is that in secular western Buddhism you do not have to do the guilt thing, beat yourself up or give yourself a hard time when you make mistakes, (as you surely will) because none of us will ever be mistake free.

Buddhism didn’t actually begin until long after the death of the person on whose communication it is based. The name Buddhism itself was developed sometime around the early twentieth century within western society. It is derived from the words ‘Bodhi’ or ‘Buddha’ which means something like: ‘one who is awake to the way things are in actuality.’

It could be said that the story of the Buddha and Buddhism is all about worrying. To get to grips with its actuality we really do need to let go of all the intellectual and mythological stuff that appears to have been added in. It may have been added in to possibly give it a greater credibility, but more likely it was as a means of keeping it within an institutional religious set up. It never required anything added in. It has always been credible enough in its down-to-earth, practicalities. The very basis of the Buddha’s story could easily be set out as:

1. He worried about stuff

2. He noticed that he worried about stuff

3. He left his home life to seek out why he worried about stuff

4. He found out why he worried about stuff

5. He found a way to stop worrying about stuff

6. He suggested a way that you too could stop worrying about stuff

The life story of the Buddha could be said to be, in many respects, an important teaching in itself. It shows clearly that this is a human process and not one created by an external, divine, higher intelligence, entity or energy. This is a very human story about human potential. When you think of the Buddha or see an image of the Buddha you are being invited to witness your own potential as a human being. When you see that serene pose and gentle smile it sings out to you, “yeah this guy knows what it’s all about.” And what usually comes next is. “I want some of that.”

What you may not know however is how to get it. The likelihood is that for most of your life you have been looking in all directions for an external experience that would match that expression of the Buddha. What you will eventually come to realize, when you engage with the Buddha’s teachings with integrity, is that your dream can never be fulfilled by external sources no matter how hard you try.

The historical figure, Siddhartha Gautama, we are told, spent over forty years travelling around Northern India attempting, as best he could, to communicate an experience that was realized in the concentrated states of sitting meditation. This experience is referred to here as ‘clarity.’ This experience of clarity involved no element of faith or belief. Those things would automatically fall away within that awakening experience. What was realized within the experience and later communicated by the Buddha has come to be known as the ‘Dharma,’ which in its most simplistic description would mean, ‘the way things are in actuality.’

As the Dharma spread to other countries and different cultures, it began to absorb local customs, traditions, beliefs, superstitions, rites and rituals. This was inevitable. There really is no other effective way to communicate the Dharma, without reference to what exists culturally and historically. It seems clear that the Buddha did that throughout his teaching life. He used Indian culture and the pre-existent religious belief systems to communicate what he had discovered within that experience of clarity.

Today, there are so many different Buddhist traditions, schools, sectarian groups and organisations. Many who choose to explore it for the first time in Australia, or other western countries, appear to struggle to understand what it is to be a Buddhist or what Buddhism is. The whole Buddhist arena is now so large and diverse, it has become very difficult for people to know what is and isn’t Buddhism outside of the cultural context of where it is being taught and practiced. For the average westerner this can be very confusing. They think they are being drawn towards Buddhism, but what they find is that they are inevitably being drawn towards a particular form of classical and often religious Buddhism that is associated with a culture that is alien to them. They then have to try and distinguish what is the Dharma from what is actually Indian, Tibetan, Japanese, Chinese or other Asian religious culture and this can take forever and can, for some, be a crippling and time consuming distraction.

The form of Buddhism taught and practiced within each of these different expressions of the Dharma are equally valid and perfect for those whose conditioning is dependent on that culture. But it provides, it is suggested here, limitations for anyone else, other than as an intellectual or religious pursuit. The methods, as taught by the Buddha, could be described as the developmental model for the authentic human being. One who is free from their own cultural conditioning, group think and behaviour. It is a journey of transformation, of change and is not for the faint hearted. It is an on-going living process. The institutions of culturally specific classical Buddhism may well go to great lengths to blind you to this fact. That is just the nature of institutions and there is nothing malicious going on within that. You are invited here to take the blindfold off from the outset and to keep it off.

It can be quite difficult to pinpoint when Buddhism actually began. During the lifetime of the Buddha there were no Buddhists or Buddhism. There was just him and his motley crew of fellow wandering beggars, living off the hand-outs of local villagers or being sponsored by wealthy and influential patrons. This was quite the norm in ancient India then and to some extent, it could be said, very little has changed in this respect throughout the classical Buddhist world.

Despite early reservations about being able to communicate the Dharma effectively, the numbers of his followers grew very quickly, despite his apparent non-evangelical approach to teaching. It would appear that the vast numbers that are often referred to in Buddhist texts, are something of an over exaggeration of the actuality of the situation according to archaeological surveys and some scholastic investigations. So, it is always helpful to bear in mind that ‘nothing is ever as it seems’ within Buddhism.

One of the difficulties that arose over time is the use of the word Buddha. This is because not only does it refer back to the historical human Siddhartha Gautama but it also relates to the ‘awakened mind’ of any other being that has realized the same experience as the historical Buddha.

It is suggested here that what we have now that falls into the umbrella category of Buddhism, is a number of new expressions or communications of the Dharma that have evolved at different points in history and communicated by other awakened minds, who may or may not have walked the original Dharma journey that was set out by the historical Buddha. They may well be linked by the realization experience of clarity, but the practices and methods communicated as the Dharma journey are poles apart. We also have expressions or communications of the experience of clarity that do not even have the word Buddhism attached to them at all, yet still point towards the same experience, but via a different method, which then complicates things even further.

For instance, (I’ll give you an exaggerated example to show you how ridiculous it all is) if I, as a Dharma practitioner, was waking through the park eating an orange and clarity was realized, I would become a Buddha. What I communicated following that would...