&quote;Talking Dharma&quote; (eBook)

Simply Buddhism

Buddhism is not what you think. It’s how you think. The most simplistic way of understanding, is that it’s about developing ways to move your thought process away from worry, towards developing peace of mind with the way things are. It’s about developing a life, lived without the drama of the external world. It’s taking 100% responsibility for everything you think, say and do and the observation of the quality of your mind in the flow of now-ness, as this state will define the quality of your on-going experience. This underpins what you think, what you say and do and experience next. It follows a very basic principle of cause and effect and is aligned with attempting to do the least amount of physical, emotional or psychological harm possible in any situation, to yourself, others and the world around you. The good news is you’ll learn not to do the guilt thing or beat yourself up when you make mistakes, as you surely will, as no one is infallible.

Buddhism didn’t begin until long after the death of the person on whose communication it is based. The name Buddhism itself is derived from the word Bodhi, or Buddha, which simply means ‘one who is awake to the way things are.’ We have someone whose birth name over 2,600 years ago, we are told, was Siddhartha Gautama, who is now referred to as the Buddha, but it also means any other person who has realized that same awakening experience.

Today, there are so many different Buddhist traditions, schools, sectarian groups or organizations that many Buddhists struggle to understand what it is to be a Buddhist, or what Buddhism is. This is because it’s changed significantly from its origins as a very down-to-earth, simple to understand, practical method of personal growth and development. It became another belief system of institutionalized religion that clings to ancient history, traditions, rites, rituals, superstitions and holy books that are beyond challenge within its own religious hierarchical structures.

At some point in the future, a scholar, or historian, could provide significant evidence to suggest that no such character as Siddhartha Gautama ever existed as an individual human being. This is unlikely to make one bit of difference to the validity of the communication of the Dharma. It’s never been about the communicator. It’s always been about the communication. There’s a well-known image within Buddhism that highlights this. It’s a picture of a finger pointing at the moon. The moon represents actuality, the way things are and the finger represents the awakened mind pointing towards it.

Having said that, the traditionally handed down story of the life of the historical Buddha still has some relevance, as does a more updated version of it, that takes into account a more realistic and common sense understanding of the story. The story itself is full of symbolism and inspiration that helps us to see why the communication of the Dharma is just as relevant for us today in a 21st century western culture as it was back in India 2,600 years ago.

The single most important point about the story, is that Siddhartha Gautama began his life an ordinary human being the same as you and I. There was no divine intervention. There were no pre-ordained special circumstances. He arrived on this earth, simply as a result of the human birth process that resulted from his parents having sex. This event, it’s said, took place in Lumbini which is now situated in Nepal. The birth, we’re told, was a complicated one, which led to the death of his mother a few days later. His father was the clan head of a regional republic and as such would have been a relatively wealthy man and the young Siddhartha, we’re told, would have wanted for nothing.

Here’s our second significant connection with the story. No matter what our personal or financial circumstances, I would suggest that we, materialistically speaking, are far better off now than the young Siddhartha would ever have been. Just as Siddhartha would have been educated within the culture, traditions and beliefs of his time, so were we with ours. He would have been conditioned by his surrounding influences, just as we have been. In so many different respects, his early life would have matched ours, with personal relationships, job, family, social network and an on-going pursuit of things we liked that gave us pleasure and the avoidance of things we don’t like. This is what the symbolism of the story is all about. If he could break free from his worries, there is no reason why we can’t.

By the age of 29, now married in what we’re told was a happy and loving relationship, with a young son who, we’re told, he adored and every available pleasure available to him on tap, life began to raise big questions for the relatively young Siddhartha. He began to notice that he couldn’t seem to find lasting satisfaction with any thing. Much of his life was very pleasurable, but that pleasure could not be sustained. When it ended he would find himself sad, bored or restless. He began to question that whole notion of there must be more to life than this. He would dwell on such things as what purpose or meaning there is to life, if all it means is that you are born, you age, you get sick and die whilst continuously seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.

These ideas appear to have weighed very heavily on his mind, to the extent that it began to cause an ever greater sense of worrying. If we reflect on this for a while, once again, we will see how connected we are to this part of the story. This kind of questioning arises in many different ways, for different people and can act as a trigger for change. Someone close to us may have died. We might have lost our job. Our relationship with a partner could have come to an end, or we have reached some other kind of crisis moment in our life, that makes us stop and take a look at the bigger picture. It might be that niggling background thought that we can’t seem to find this thing we call happiness.

However we have arrived at this moment, it can be a pivotal moment. For some it will be the catalyst for a change in direction and for others it will be a missed opportunity. Some will try to suppress it, ignore it, or hide from it, so they can carry on going round in the same habitual cycles of pleasure and pain. There may be in the background some kind of fear of change. There appears to be a comfort blanket effect in clinging to what we know, even if it’s unhelpful, rather than be prepared to step outside of that comfort zone and explore other options. It certainly was a change moment for Siddhartha, as he concluded that the only option for him was to leave his comfort zone and go off in search for an answer to his worrying.

The thought of leaving our family, friends, job, or our home would possibly be the last thing we would consider doing and there are those that think what Siddhartha did was a bit of a cop out, or showed a lack of responsibility, but this was quite normal in India during this period. Both his wife and child would have been taken care of during his absence and they were reunited later, once his worrying had been resolved. Because of his decision to go off in search for an answer to the worrying he was experiencing, we do not have to. He did much of the hard work for us. As a result, we now have a practical method that can be applied in order to arrive at the same conclusion, without the need to put ourselves through everything that he did. That’s not to say your own journey will be easy. We live in a very different world and will have different things to overcome, but essentially what he communicated, is that we too can realize peace of mind by our own efforts, whatever life circumstances.

Having left his home, Siddhartha spent the next six years living as a wandering beggar. During this time he met and aligned himself with all of the apparent spiritual teachers he came across during his travels. We’re told that he was an ardent student who tested and challenged everything he was taught and was often invited to join various communities as an equal to the teacher but always declined. He found, that despite being helpful, none of these teachers seemed to have the answer he was looking for. With each method, technique or teaching he practiced, he found that even when he pursued it fully with 100% integrity, it always fell short in some respect or other. Having done the rounds and tried out everything that was on offer, he turned to taking up extreme austere practices, such as almost starving himself to death, or subjecting himself to extreme physical pain. Back then and even today in some parts of India you will you find the most bizarre things going on by those who consider that they are on some kind of spiritual quest.

If we reflect on this part of the story, perhaps we can recognize something of ourselves in this. How many of us have dabbled in a never ending range of activities that promised us the happiness we sought? What fortunes have we spent on self-help books, or the latest book, or DVD by our celebrity guru? How many times do we believe we have been apparently healed by crystals, reiki, gongs, mantra’s or prayers, only to find we’re very quickly back at square one? How many different meditation methods have we tried and decided they didn’t work after a couple of sessions? How many apparent teachers have we found and dismissed because they did not match our expectations, or...