Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[Acoustic guitar playing]
[“Majestic Bounty”]
Hello, Star here on the grounds
of the Skeptical Buddhist Sangha in Second Life.
I've mentioned in earlier talks and in my blog,
that special terms in Buddhism
are generally pretty flexible.
For example, in “What is Skeptical Buddhism?”
I defined “sangha” as
“the community of people who practice Buddhism,
who support each other in their practice
and try to share the insight with those who want it”
and closed that episode with
“Welcome to my sangha.”
Those who aren't Skeptical Buddhists –
or aren't even Buddhists – might have thought
“I'm not part of her support community.”
Which might be true, but the word “sangha”
can also mean the physical place,
or in this case the virtual version of a physical place,
that individuals in a practice group go to meet.
So when I said, “Welcome to my sangha,”
it would be fine to interpret that
as welcoming you to my spiritual home
here in Second Life.
I like the flexibility of these words because
as in this case –
it makes it possible to say both things at once.
But this could cause problems, too,
leaving words open for the listener
to figure out the speaker's meaning.
Still, if we think about it,
pretty much all words are that loose;
Buddhist terminology is no different.
But if you listened all the way to the end
of that first talk and heard me say,
“Welcome to my sangha,” do you remember
what you thought, or how it made you feel?
Or if not a part of your memories,
can you imagine what your reaction
might have been? Blow it off and not care?
Get a warm, fuzzy feeling?
Think it's stupid and a complete waste of ear-time?
These three types of initial reactions
– indifference, pleasure, aversion –
are what the Buddha wanted us to notice
are the three ways we respond
to whatever comes our way.
The size of any given response
and the shades of emotion,
vary from event to event,
and person to person.
What happens next tends to be
that we form opinions
about whatever we just responded to
it might be as simple as “Nice! Do that again!”
or “Yuck! Get me away from that!”
or, “Eh, whatever.”
Or the reaction can be a great deal more complex
because our choice
of whether to put it in the “more” box,
the “no more” box,
or the “ignore” box
may include a large number of factors
past experiences, future dreams,
even our mood in the moment.
But whatever the event,
and whatever our reaction,
it results in us forming an opinion about it
even if that opinion is simply “It's not worth my time.”
This is our “view” of the event,
a view which we cling to
until something comes along to change our minds.
I've often heard that
“What Buddhism is all about
is freeing us from suffering”,
and that what causes that suffering
is “clinging” or “craving.”
This is sometimes interpreted by newcomers
as craving for sensual pleasure, or material wealth
and those do fit into the clinging
I'm trying to describe,
but really it is much, much larger than that.
Because what we're talking about here
is clinging to the very broad categories
of “views and opinions.”
Included in this are the ones
that lead some of us to think that we'd be happy,
we could really be happy, if only:
we were wealthy
we had more power
our house was clean
or whatever.
What the Buddha wanted us to see
is that wealth, power, and a clean house
are not the problems,
it's the opinion that we cling to so dearly,
that these things are what can make us happy,
that opinion is the problem.
Our constant questing to get all our ducks in a row,
“just so”
in the belief that if we could just control everything
we'd be where we want to be in our lives,
be who we want to be.
“If only” is the theme that runs through our lives...
“If only I hadn't...”
“If only I could...”
“If only I were truly...”
you fill in the blanks:
eaten that cake,
get a better job,
were truly enlightened...
We cling to these beliefs
and they get in the way of our ability
to actually be happy in the only situation
in which we can be happy,
which is in the present.
We might have been happy in the past, sure,
there is hope of happiness in the future, true,
but there is only one place where you can
make happiness exist for sure and that's
right here, right now.
If we spend all our time rehashing the past
or *** for a certain future,
we miss our chance to notice
whatever could be making us happy now.
The realistic view of our lives
that Buddhism teaches us – not just to see --
but to work into our understanding
so that it becomes that sort of “native”
“in your bones”
downright instinctive understanding --
that realistic view shows us that
very little of our lives is under our control.
We can captain the tall ship of our lives,
setting the sails, tightening the rigging,
measuring the weather
and holding tight to the wheel,
and we can steer as best we can by the charts and maps,
and by the stars,
but we can't be absolutely certain
once we've set our course,
what path we'll take getting there
nor when exactly we'll arrive
nor what shape we'll be in when we get there.
A great deal of the practice of Buddhism
is practicing letting go of just that
the expectations we have for
where our plans will lead us.
Steer, by all means, steer a course,
learn all you can to get where you're going,
but if we can learn to enjoy the trip
by noticing where we are,
we will have something in the end
even if we end up in the wrong hemisphere,
we'll have had a good trip.
In addition, being present in the moment
makes us more able to adapt to changes in weather,
shift course, re-trim those sails,
and maybe actually get where we planned.
It's interesting to me
that when I study other religions --
and I do see Buddhism, even Skeptical Buddhism,
as a religion, and one day
(no doubt)
I'll tell you why I think so --
I have noticed that the religions I've seen
have one feature in common,
and that is that one of the ways
they give relief to their followers
is to advise them to surrender --
usually it's to the will of God,
sometimes it may be to a sense of duty,
or in some other way.
But all of them address the issue
of the ways we struggle so hard
to achieve whatever it is
we feel we should achieve,
and it is rare that we ever get there,
rarer still in the ways we imagine.
I see the practice of “letting go” in Buddhism
as the same sort of process
but the reasons for this
particular form of surrender are entirely logical;
it's not a surrender to any higher power,
unless you consider “reality” a higher power.
So that's it for today,
this wordy little glimpse
into the Buddhist view of “views.”
Next time we ought to cover
the main tool in the Buddhist toolbox,
perhaps including both how
and why we use it.
But I'm not making any promises
about what the future will bring.
[Acoustic guitar playing]
Till next time
[Acoustic guitar playing]
namasté!
[“Majestic Bounty”]
[by Lawrence Cresswell]