Buddhist Belief — Training Our Minds
“To experience love, we must go inside. When you experience real love you get into a state which is beyond words. You are filled with a joy that goes beyond all emotions.
True love is the love of the inner Self.”~~~ Swami Muktananda
As I ended the post last weekend, I commented that the Dalai Lama said on many occasions, “The purpose of life is to be happy.” And the purpose of this blog is to search out how the teachings of Buddhist Belief might be just the information you and I need to find the happiness and life-long inner peace that we all desire. It’s available to every one of us who choose to follow the teachings.
I also spoke briefly to those who feel that they are already happy enough. I’m sure there are many who are reading here that feel that their life is already perfect. That’s wonderful. Enjoy your life. Please know that you’re certainly welcome to stick around here and see if you might pick up a pointer or two to add to your happiness.
I do suspect that there are those of you who are looking for some answers. Perhaps you’re looking for something to help you, for something a little deeper. Is it possible that some of you are looking for something more — something more than what’s in your life today. Do you feel that everything is never quite enough?
Aha! There’s the “Aha” moment that Oprah is always talking about. Therein lies the problem — the things in our life are never quite enough!
Think about this for a moment — do you ever find yourself feeling a little greedy? Do you ever envy something that someone you know has in their lives that you don’t have in yours? Are there things or people in your life that you are completely attached to? Do you ever resist the idea that something in your life may not last forever? Think about it — selfishness, egotism and clinging just don’t work very well, and they’re downright dissatisfying, aren’t they?
So how do we get past this? How do we get free? The teachings of Buddhist Belief show us the way to make it happen. However, we are human beings, after all, so we have to be sure that this stuff is as true today as it was 2500 years ago. This isn’t just for monks living a monastic life, it’s for all of us. And it’s up to us to keep it alive and pass along the teachings through the way we live our own lives. If we live in such a way that we’re being open, generous, loving, and cooperative, our own stress-levels will be greatly diminished, and believe it or not, people will begin to copy you. Eventually, there won’t be anywhere near the amount of conflict and confusion that would usually wear us down.
Over the last posts we’ve talked a little about the Four Noble Truths. We’re going to spend some time in the next posts going into much more detail so you have a better understanding of them. The main gist of them is not that hard to fathom, though — there is suffering in life — that it is caused by our greed, craving, and attachments — and that letting go of this way of life is the way to inner peace and freedom.
A couple more paragraphs on how to live this way, and then we’ll get this writing posted. The things I’m writing about here are to help every one of us to become more positive forces in the world. Complacency won’t work — it never does. I can assure you that we need to completely avoid complacency at these times. This world desperately needs our help in order to survive.
One of the things I’ve always wondered about is whether it’s ever good to be a little tough about these beliefs. One of the Buddhist leaders, Trungpa Rinpoche said in one of his books, “Don’t give in to idiot compassion!” An example of what he meant by that was the example of the biblical story of Jesus and the money-changers in the temple. He threw the bums out! That’s an example of how saying an emphatic “No!” is really the most positive thing you can do. Often times it becomes necessary for us to have to be more emphatic about certain things.
An example that happened to me in my own life comes to mind. I was in the downtown area of Burlington, Vermont leaving a theater rehearsal for a play I was acting in and on my way to my car. It was quite late in the evening and as I walked past a bar, there was a drunk guy outside slapping a woman around. I came up behind him — pinned his arms to his sides — and told the woman to take off while I held the guy. After she got away, I let him go and he took a couple of ineffective swings at me until he suddenly got very white-faced and began to be quite sick. I was able to just walk away.
That was a situation that was forceful, but it was necessary and appropriate. Also, it was not done out of aggression. If I had done that out of anger, the end result could have been much different.
Buddhism is about training our minds, our bodies, and our speech so that we can learn how to act. This doesn’t mean that once you commit to a lifestyle as taught by the Buddhist Belief that you will never feel anger again. You will, but you will also learn how to control it and suppress it. Those awakened teachers, among them Mahatma Gandhi, for example, were true examples of how to live non-aggressive lives. They learned how to turn negativity into positivity. Gandhi literally changed consciousness. He didn’t take up arms, instead he got most of India to walk with him to the sea. The British had to back down against this display of passive resistance.
Out of compassion can come an action that may be forceful, when it’s necessary. The result we’re looking for is peace, not only in the world but also in our hearts.
One final comment about attachment. At this stage of our learning, the type of attachment we need to rid ourselves of in our lives is the attachment to unhealthy things, like drugs, tobacco, unhealthy relationships and alcohol. Turn those attachments into things like healthy foods, meditation and spirituality. Eventually, all attachments will become more subtle. As Buddha said, “(Dharma), Buddhist Belief, is like a raft to cross the raging river of suffering.” Eventually, all rafts will be left behind when we reach the other shore.
Next time we’ll really start to dig into the Second Noble Truth.
I’ve been showing you a series of short 10-minute videos produced by the BBC called “The Life of Buddha.” Last time was Part Two. This time we’ll show you Part Three. I hope you enjoy it. If, for some reason, the video doesn’t play when you press the play button, here’s a link to take you directly to it :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqBY7RM5Cn0
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Always remember ….
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”~~~ Buddha
Shanti … (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: Buddhism, Buddhist Belief, Four Noble Truths, Meditation, Peace