The Buddha in Me, The Buddha in You: A Handbook for Happiness by David Hare

Author:David Hare [Hare, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473528208
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2016-02-04T05:00:00+00:00

No Nirvana

The pre-Nichiren schools of Buddhism (the ones more commonly known in the West) had claimed that it was our desires that produced suffering and therefore if you had no desires you could no longer suffer – QED. Makes sense at first glance, doesn’t it? And like all Buddhist teachings, this undoubtedly had value for a time. Until you realise that the desire to have no desires is a desire in itself … And that following this route can leave you feeling numb and empty. And that to suppress your desires is to risk becoming a lardy, lumpy blob of nothing.

Of course, the dictatorial government of Nichiren’s time was quite happy for people to know their place and keep their ambitions in check, all on a ‘jam tomorrow’ promise that when you died there would be salvation in a ‘Pure Land’ or nirvana (heaven) – a place whose existence Nichiren vigorously denied (see Chapter 10). Where his Buddhism is so radically different is that rather than encouraging us to selfishly follow all our desires or, at the other extreme, selflessly suppress them, or indeed veer between the two poles, he talks about transforming them, often using the analogy of turning ‘poison into medicine’.

I once knew a Nichiren Buddhist who sincerely chanted for a woman who had hurt him to suffer a terrible accident and die, so angry did he feel about what she ‘had done to him’. Because there are no moral rules in this practice, he was not advised to suppress this desire or feel ashamed of it. Because Buddhism is non-judgemental, any starting point is acceptable; practitioners trust the power of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to drive their lives in a positive value-creating direction. His chanting slowly but surely harnessed the passion in his anger and transformed it into more positive and creative thoughts about the woman in question. He slowly began to feel respect, gratitude and even compassion towards her, realising that what she had ‘done to him’ was a reflection of the sediment in his own life. Thank you, Spoon.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.