Buddhist Belief — “The Greatest Goodness is a Peaceful Mind”
“The greatest achievement is selflessness. The greatest worth is self-mastery. The greatest quality is seeking to serve others. The greatest precept is continual awareness. The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything. The greatest action is not conforming with the world’s ways. The greatest magic is transmuting the passions. The greatest generosity is non-attachment. The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind. The greatest patience is humility. The greatest effort is not concerned with results. The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go. The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.”~~~ Atisha
I’m going to see if I can finish up with our discussion of the Third Noble Truth of Buddhist Belief with this article. Let’s talk a bit about the questions we all ask of ourselves. Questions like, “What good is our spiritual life?” Or, “What is our place in the Universe?” Questions like these take on an important role when we are faced with the many adversities in the world today. We have the lack of peace in the world. We have economic collapse happening. We have serious climate problems. We have the governments of countries focusing on hate and greed as their number one principle. The leaders of nations are using saber-rattling in attempts to gain superiority.
So what’s going on? In my other blog I’ve been writing about what I consider to be a fact, that if you go around the world and ask people what they truly want in their lives, you get pretty much the same answers. We want a healthy environment, we want health for our children and ourselves, we want to be able to provide the necessities of life for our families, we want to live in peace and we want to be told the truth by our leaders.
Could it be that we’ve lost sight of the fact that we’re all connected? We all have our place in the universe. Is it true that there is a bit of aggression, alienation, and bitterness that we still cling to? Have we neglected doing the daily meditation practice so we can find those places in us and pacify it there? We’re not helpless. We’re not hopeless. Spiritual work doesn’t just mean sitting with our inner stillness all the time. Our spiritual work can include service, community building, working for peaceful causes and finding ways to show compassion and love to others.
When we learn to be more open with ourselves and with others, we will see how we can help others to find their own inner peace. Always remember this, Nirvana, according to Buddha, is simply the relinquishment of craving, of clinging, and of attachment. He says it’s simple, but even though that’s true, it is not a small thing. The more we devote time each day to our spiritual practice, our meditation — the more we live our lives in spiritual ways — the less rigid, demanding, and greedy we are, the more Nirvana starts to creep in.
Well, it doesn’t actually come creeping in because it’s always there. It’s us who hold it away. Nirvana is always right here — it’s just us who are always somewhere else. What we need is a change in perspective, right? We need to take a good hard look at what we’re doing. Ask yourself these few questions:
“Is our life going to get better if we keep on hanging on to everything?”
“Can we realize how “things” have a way of slipping away no matter how hard we attempt to cling to them?
“Can we learn to accept that it is our resistance to impermanence causing us to be dissatisfied?”
If we truly look into ourselves, we will, hopefully, begin to sense a weariness with our life-investment in the fool’s gold of our own selfishness, our accumulations, our need to be always so busy being who we think we are. It’s no wonder we’re tired most of the time. What a job it is to live our lives this way. We have to constantly work to keep this illusion of ourselves alive so that our ego-mind will be satisfied.
Once we learn how to let go — and get used to how it feels to let go — we will see how our suffering, our dissatisfaction, will simmer down. We’ll begin to recognize true inner peace. We’ll find that constant demanding will become unnecessary. We’ll see how our lives can be less complicated. Sure, you’ll begin to notice that negative energy you see in others gets more attention than positive energy. But positive energy, though more subtle than negative energy, is also much longer-lasting. We also know that people will notice the examples put out there for them to see. It’s vital, I think, for us to keep showing up and fostering as much of the good energy as we can — wherever we can. How many times in your own life have you seen someone who displays positive energy and thought to yourself, “Now, that’s how I’d like to be!”
If, through the way we live our lives will cause one other person to live their lives with compassion and love for others, we will have encouraged another leader. Once we relinquish our craving, clinging, attachments, greed and foolish desires, our lives will begin to understand the power of inner peace. Meditate every day. Make your job the work of finding your true self, the self of love and compassion. The self without suffering as taught by Buddha.
This is the Third Noble Truth of Buddhist Belief.
Next, is the Fourth Noble Truth — the last of the facts of life as taught by Buddha. All the truths are important to know. It wouldn’t be fair to try to rank them in any order of importance. I do have to say, in my opinion, the Fourth Noble Truth is the clear answer to how to end suffering. We know that we suffer, we know what causes it, we know that we have to let go of some things in our lives, and now we come to the actual path to show us how to make it all happen. The Fourth Noble Truth is also called The Eightfold Path. It’s the Eightfold Path to Enlightened Living.
This is the path that will get into the nitty-gritty of how to find the true Nirvana within us. These are the steps we must take to end the suffering and dissatisfaction all of us are subject to experience as human beings. Our next several articles will be devoted to this subject. I will keep striving to put these teaching in clear, understandable language. Sometimes, when reading some of the texts of Buddhist Belief, there is a tendency to over-complicate. If I fall into that trap, please do comment or email me about it and I’ll try to clear my explanations even further.
See you in the next articles.
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For those who wanted me to repeat the links for the books I’ve mentioned in the last few articles, here they are again:
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s wonderful book, “My Stroke of Insight” — “Nirvana is just a breath away!”
An this one by Sharon Salzberg and is entitled: “A Heart as Wide as the World: Living with Mindfulness, Wisdom and Compassion“.
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Always remember this wonderful quote from Buddha ….
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”~~~ Buddha
Shanti everyone, … (A sanscrit word meaning, “Let there be Peace. Peace, beautiful Peace. Peace within, Peace without. Peace in this world. Peace for all beings.”)
“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”~~~ Buddha
Have a peaceful day!! —
Ron Rink
http://www.theleaderinside.com
http://www.wecould2.com
http://www.buddhistbelief.com
Tags: Buddhist Belief, Buddha, Buddhism, Buddhist, First Noble Truth, Four Noble Truths, Second Noble Truth, Third Noble Truth, Nirvana, inner peace, peace, attachment, detachment, Fourth Noble Truth
Tags: attachment, Buddha, Buddhism, Buddhist, Buddhist Belief, detachment, First Noble Truth, Four Noble Truths, Fourth Noble Truth, inner peace, Nirvana, Peace, Second Noble Truth, Third Noble Truth
September 15th, 2009 at 3:00 am
Buddhism spiritual practice added value to our life and Buddhism that many practitioners say they bring to their business lives.