I have thought about blogging about Buddhism for some time, but (a) thought it pretentious and (b) didn't have time. Now I find that my life has taken an unexpected turn and it seems to make sense to begin.
"How the hell do you talk about Buddhism when your life is a f%#ing mess?" you may well ask. Actually, if you believe, as I do, that Buddhahood doesn't have anything to do with some blissful state of la-la-land, then you KNOW that it's in the f%#ing mess that Buddhahood lies. In fact, it's in the mess, the disaster, the unrequited, the unhappy, the failed.
It's also in the victory, the joy, the requited, the all-neat-and-tidy too. But it's not missing from the shit. Sometimes it is easier to see Buddhahood in the shit -- or has more meaning, or a greater impact in the shit. Whatev.
So I will do my best to put thoughts to paper (or whatever this is) and maybe something will resonate with you too.
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Hey there D - let me be the first person to join your Buddhablog - how cool is that?
ReplyDeleteI loved reading what you wrote and I have a few comments to make about your post. You have addressed THE number one thing that has caused me to loose faith. Perhaps blogging (is that really a verb?) about it will restore my faith.
Up until about a year ago, I was completely cool with the idea of Buddhahood being the good and the bad; the ugly and the beautiful; the sorrow and the joy. But one day, after receiving a number of spiritual, emotional, intellectual, personal, physical, and financial blows, I started to doubt the wisdom of a spiritual practice that "requires" one to suffer so much. I mean, I know I suffer sometimes more than others and I suffer sometimes less than others; I am not sure how this works. But what I do know is that I felt, and I am sure you can understand this, that no matter how much daimoku I chanted and no matter how many causes I made, I was defeated!
I couldn't pretend anymore that I wasn't defeated. I just had to admit it and accept it. I didn't want to be defeated; I didn't want to be discouraged, but I was - there was no other way to describe how I felt.
But in Nichiren Buddhism we are not supposed to be defeated and that is when I decided that maybe it was not the right spiritual practice for me. I mean, I love chanting, and I love my Gohonzon, but I also realized that my practice - which at that time was quite consistant and I was actively involved with the organization, etc...all the "right" things to do - was not meeting my spiritual needs.
Maybe I am just a wimp, but enough is enough. I started to look at my Gohonzon as the manifestation of Nicherin's life and I have read the gosho enough to know how much he suffered; yeah he was always pretty cheery about what he was going through, but, I don't know; I just couldn't be cheery about my suffering. I had to acknowledge the reality that I was unhappy.
Hi there, one can only understand one's bucket of sh.. so I won't say that I understand. However, I have been a practioner of Buddhism for nearly 29 years, and I know that one important thing to remember is that the "Sangha" aka the community is what has made me continue, oh and the other thing is I never stop having a seeking mind. I went to a lecture by Jack Kornfield who's the founder of Spirit Rock a couple nights ago, the topic of the evening was "what will the buddha do during tough time", Jack quoted one of his friend who said "your mind is like a bad neighborhood, you don't want to go there alone!" Having ups and downs in your practice is all about being human so when we feel like crap, you can just live that crap as it is for what it is, just a thought. Our thoughts don't define who we are (remember the bad neighborhood) but if that's what you feel, be it, but do it without judgement, that's the key. When Nichiren says "if you wish to free yourself from the sufferings...... chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo will therefore enable you to grasp the mystic truth innate in all life." On attaining Buddhahood.
ReplyDeleteSo here's my 2 cents of wisdom.
We don't know each other but I'll chant for you Catherine.
Veronique
I love this Blog Diana,
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that we are to a point that we no longer have to pretend in order to encourage one another. Some of the VERY BEST encouragement that I got was when a person stood up at a meeting to give there experience and had nothing to say, except "I am going through hell right now and I didn't complete my goals. She also said, which was the important part, "but I WILL NOT give up!".
I don't even know what the outcome was, I just know the fact that this person had the courage to stand up in front of people and say that she was really struggling back when we had to always smile at Shakabuku Meeting took a lot of guts.
This is not to say that being optimistic and cheery is wrong. I love that life state too. It is VERY important to stay positive. My point is to be where we are and acknowledge it. A person has to be honest with themselves in order to change karma. There is a difference between being “Positive” and being “Fake”.
I think if we keep it real we can reach/touch hearts. It is arrogant to think that people cannot tell when we are being fake. If we are heart to heart with one another, then we just are.....
Deeply-Thanks Again,
Patricia
I knew I liked you, Diana. It's probably because you are so dangerous :) My Mom was a lot like yours.
ReplyDeleteI also like what Patricia said. I believe it is true that one must refuse to give up, no matter what. Still, there will always be crap to deal with, even in the best of times.
And we don't have to like it, but we can behave positively and we don't have to ruin ourselves, and others. When people give up, they can get self-destructive, turn their lives over to chaos, and then wonder how it got so bad. I've seen so much of that. I like that we view our lives as a "life condition." That way it is changeable.
Another thought is that, even though we strive to be Buddhas in this lifetime, we are still stuck in duality while we are here. With duality there will always be opposites, so getting both seems to be expected. Duality is also part of our life condition.
I like the way President Ikeda (and even Mrs. Ikeda) keep encouraging us to never give up. It fits for all situations and I can remember it even at the worst times.
Margaret
If everything is perfect, then it is hard to chant. Sometimes we have a fixed idea of what is happiness and forget the blessings in our life. I think suffering (real or imagined) can be a great impetus for us to use as a fuel to attain enlightenment. Even illness can awaken us to finally change our life.
ReplyDeleteThis question of what I have bought into only raises the more interesting question of what I haven't bought into. For instance, as a child I stared at things a lot, especially people, pictures and cracks in walls. There was a large wedding photo of my parents that I stared at until I was locked in it, at which point I could see a hand slowly move, a facial expression change, or a mouth utter a word. Similarly, I spent a lot of time alone listening to things in the silence. There was another life in there and occasionally that life would slip into this one in fragments, like things said either in the past or future or maybe it was intuition. In that liminal time where one could look at a thing and see through its concrete quality to its ephemeral quality-- see it move and talk, become permeable and porous to the moment--that's what I have refused to forget. I loved the song "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" not only for the way the round mimics the music of the spheres, but for the words, "merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream." Indeed I felt life was a dream, and paradoxically more real than things like kindergarten where one slowly learned not to wake up from the dream but to dull it with the measurement of time, and rules and decorum. I didn't forget that either. But I suppose the most important thing I repeated was never to forget my realness, like in my prayer in the bath at dusk when the light, water and air had the same hue of gunmetal, or at night doing somersaults across the lawn and looking at the stars, or painting and feeling that smoothness, the liquefaction of color onto newsprint. Somehow these moments were real, were me, and I vowed never to forget.
ReplyDeleteI'm a clutz in cyber space: I meant to write the above under the blog about stuff we've bought into. CC
ReplyDelete