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Basics of Buddhism For a person just encountering Buddhism for the first time or for a person encountering Nichiren Buddhism for the first time, it is important to have a grounding in the basics of Buddhism before advanced study with the Lotus Sutra and the even more advanced study of Nichiren Buddhism. Although Nichiren Buddhism is based almost exclusively on the Lotus Sutra, there is a part of the Lotus Sutra that says that if people don’t listen to the Lotus Sutra, it’s up to us to find some other teachings of the Buddha to reach those people. By learning the Basics of Buddhism, we increase our vocabulary; we increase our understanding of the teachings, we increase our understanding of what we can teach others, because not everyone is ready for the Lotus Sutra quite yet. So, we can bring them along slowly in much the same way as the Buddha brought people along slowly. To talk about the basics of Buddhism, we have to talk about the Buddha – Shakyamuni who lived some 2500 years ago. He was born in a Northern Kingdom of India near Tibet. He was born into a royal family, his father was the king, and he was the crown prince. He was the one who was supposed to succeed his father and take over the kingdom. His father named him Siddhartha which means “Every Wish Fulfilled”. Everything he could possibly want he could have and for most of his young life that’s exactly what he got. He lived in splendor. Any time he cried there was someone there to comfort him. Anytime he was sick there was someone there to heal him. If anyone around him who was sick or upset, they were quickly whisked away. If there were smells that were unpleasant, they were either removed or covered with incense and perfume. He always wore soft clothing. He had plenty to eat. Plenty of exercise. Plenty of teachers to come and instruct him on reading and writing and teach him all the things he would need to know in order to be a king. He lacked for absolutely nothing. As he grew up, that wasn’t enough for him. There are stories told about him going to a plowing festival at the beginning of Spring and his father had a golden plow that would turn the earth over for the first time. And, then the rest of the farmers and peasants would come to complete the plowing of the field and Shakyamuni would see birds coming down to eat the worms that had been exposed. So, he started wondering to himself – he wasn’t identifying with the birds so much as he was the worms! And, he wondered “why do living creatures have to kill each other in order to live?” Here’s somebody who has everything he wants and he’s worried about birds and worms. So, from the very beginning, there was a sensitivity to what life is and what goes on in life. And, he knew that somehow that what he was seeing in the palace around him wasn’t everything. So, at one point when he was in his late teens, he asked his charioteer to take him outside the gate. The charioteer being loyal to Siddhartha’s father, told the king about this. The King said, “Well, OK. We can take him outside the gate, outside the palace, but be sure everything is scrubbed. Take all the beggars off the street. Make sure there’s nobody out there who’s sick or dying or hurt. Of course, the people loved it. They knew about this prince who was handsome and strong and brave and they wanted to see him. So, they came and lined the streets and cheered him and made him feel wonderful about being outside. But still, he knew that wasn’t it. He knew that wasn’t all there was to it. So, he had his charioteer go off the road a little bit. As they went off the road, he ran into four things his father hadn’t counted on him running into. The first thing he saw was an old man – bent over, crippled, walking down the street. Siddhartha had never seen an old person before – all the old people were taken out of the palace. There was nothing like that around the palace. He asked, “What is this?” The chariot driver said, “Well, that’s an old man.” And, Siddhartha asked, “Do we all get like that?” And, the chariot driver said, “Yes, as a matter of fact we do.” The next thing he saw was a sick man laying in the street – a man convulsing and probably covered with sores and nobody helping him out. And, Siddhartha asked, “What’s that?” He had never seen such a thing before. The chariot driver said, “That’s a sick man. Everyone gets sick sometime…you’re going to get sick, too, some day.” Then he saw a dead man being carried down the street by his relatives. They seemed very unhappy about the death of their beloved one. Siddhartha asked, “Is that what happens to all of us, too?” The chariot driver answered, “Yes.” Then he saw a wise man – a mendicant that was walking in his patched clothes carrying a bowl, begging. And, Siddhartha asked “What’s that?” And the chariot driver answered, “That’s a man who is searching for the path. Siddhartha made up his mind at that point that that’s what he was going to do some day. And, so he left home after the birth of his first son. He gave up everything he had in the palace. He gave up all his wealth, his title, his position, all his friends, and tried to answer one question: Why is there suffering? What can we do to get rid of suffering? He came from a world where his father brought him up that the way to get rid of suffering is to stick it away. Everything that feels good is good and everything that feels bad is bad. The object of life was to feel good as much as possible and to feel bad as little as possible. So, he went off to figure out what he could do so nobody feels bad…that even the old person, the sick person, the dying person…that those people could be helped, too. So, he went to look for teachers, but he surpassed them all. He learned some wonderful methods b of meditation and asceticism, but he was aware that he hadn’t reached enlightenment – he hadn’t solved the problems he had set out to solve. So, he went into some serious asceticism. He spent 6 years with a group of other people. It is said that he lived on a single grain of rice and a single drop of water a day. You may have seen a statue of the Buddha at this time – it’s called Buddha Fasting, and it’s amazing in its detail. You see the ribs and the veins going over the ribs…you see this emaciated man with gaunt ribs and sunken eyes and you think how did he live like that…how did he exist? When that statue was made there had to be some model some place…somebody had to have done something like that. That is what the Buddha looked like. And, then one day he was taking a bath in the river. He was trying to crawl out of the river when he was finished bathing and he had lost so much strength that he couldn’t pull himself out and almost drowned. He realized that this is not the way. I tortured myself, I denied myself, I’m not finding the way like this. And, if I keep this up I’m going to die and I’m not going to find the way. And, about that time, there was a young shepherd girl who came by with an offering of milk and gruel and gave it to Siddhartha. When his fellow ascetics saw this, they figured OK, he’s gone. He’s eaten. He’s off the path. They didn’t want anything to do with him any more. Slowly, Siddhartha began to gain his strength. And, here the story begins to get a little fuzzy because Siddhartha himself tried to describe what happened, but nobody really knows. He sat under a tree for seven days and at the end of the seven days he became enlightened. After he became enlightened, he went to find his fellow ascetics and he tried to explain what was going on…this is one of the very early sutras. It is absolutely incomprehensible. If you look at that - No clue. You have to ask yourself, “What is this guy talking about.” So the Buddha goes back and tries again. And, he comes back with the Four Noble Truths. Now, the first of the truths is almost a denial of what he said he was looking for. The first thing he said is “There is suffering. Suffering exists.” No matter what we do, suffering exists. It’s going to happen. The second thing he said was “I found what causes suffering.” And, again, he turns things around in a way that a lot of people didn’t realize. To me, what the Buddha was trying to address is: why are people unhappy? Why are we unhappy? And most people say they’re unhappy because they don’t have what they want. With the second noble truth, the Buddha turns that around entirely. He said, “You’re not unhappy because you don’t have what you want, you’re unhappy because you want what you don’t have.” And, in some way that’s a very subtle distinction…and, in some way it could be a meaningless distinction. But, it’s very profound and very empowering. If you think, how much control do we have over getting what we want? You can work hard, you can go build a house and the next day a hurricane comes along and blows that house down. You can be in a career, you can be in a job, and all sorts of things can happen. We don’t have much control over that. How much control do we have over our own desires? How much control do we have over our own perceptions? Maybe not a lot…but, a lot more than over a hurricane that comes to visit us. That’s the second noble truth. The third noble truth is that there is a way to end suffering….which is the fourth noble truth. The way to end suffering is the Eight-Fold Noble Path: Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Meditation, and Right Mindfulness. These all go in a nice succession. If we all have the right understanding of the world, we’ll think about the world right. If we think about how the world goes, we’ll speak right; we’ll address the world the way it is – we’ll address things the way they are. We won’t say things that don’t need to be said. If we speak right we’ll act right. And you can do these things backwards, too. Maybe if I did something that isn’t right…made a mistake…maybe there was something behind that. Maybe I wasn’t thinking right. Maybe I don’t have the right understanding. So these are all tied together. Now, as the Buddha taught, more and more people started joining him – they wanted to follow his path and learn more about how he had reached his enlightenment and they wanted to improve their lives with his wisdom. And as this happened there started to grow large communities that were following him around and wanted to learn from him. Now, with communities, people start needing rules - ethics. The word ethos means habit. Our ethics are our habits. And, our habits have a way of reinforcing themselves. If we make it custom of not telling the truth to people, that gets to be a habit to where not telling the truth becomes such a habit, we’re not even aware we’re doing it any more. The precepts are not “Thou shalts” the way a lot of Christians look at Commandments. The precepts are more – if you find yourself doing things There are Five Basic Precepts – not killing, not stealing, not lying, no sexual misconduct, and not intoxicating yourself. These aren’t like if you don’t tell the truth you’re going to hell. These are more - If you find yourself not telling the truth about things, ask yourself why? What is your motivation? What is your understanding? How are you seeing the situation? Because not telling the truth, not dealing with reality, that’s taking away from the Buddha Dharma. The Buddha Dharma is about reality. Suffering exists. We have to face it. We have to deal with it. Not killing, not stealing…those two are pretty obvious. Then again, they can be confusing. If there’s an apple hanging off a tree and I’m walking passed and take it, is that stealing? Well, if the farmer is growing the apples to sell, then I’m taking his livelihood. If it’s in the forest…well, I don’t know. It’s the intention the thought. Not killing…we all have to kill to eat - even vegetarians. I was cleaning some dried beans one time and got to thinking, you know, if I put one of these beans in the ground, it would probably become a plant. And, I’m holding all these lives right here in my hands. And, those lives are going to become part of my life. Now, I can’t starve. But, the least I can do is be grateful and realize where my sustenance comes from. Sexual misconduct – lots of different interpretations of that. Intoxicants – a lot of people just think of alcohol and drugs. To me there’s something else very different going on here. It’s when the substance is damaging to a person. We need to look at the connection between the things we’re putting in to our bodies and how our body reacts and how our mind works. [We must look at the consequences of putting anything into our bodies] When we look at the precept – no intoxicants – we’re not just talking about beer, wine, and dope. We’re talking about everything. We need to be mindful of everything we put into our bodies. The precepts can be misused. Looking at others and saying I’m a good person because I’m using the precepts and those folks who are not using them are the bad folks – that’s a misuse of the precepts. I think the Buddha saw that happening. He taught for 40 years, so I’m sure he saw some of this. He realized he had to come up with something else to get away from the sense of “We’re doing this for ourselves. We’re following the Buddha’s path but all these other people, well, they’ll get it eventually, but we can’t worry about them.” What the Buddha did is come up with the Bodhisattva Practice – the Six Perfections – The Six Paramitas. The very first of those perfections is Generosity. Generosity is the bridge…it’s the one element – it’s the first precept that tells us to go out beyond ourselves, beyond our egos, beyond our skins and to realize that we are not going to become Buddhas until everyone else becomes a Buddha as well. Our happiness is mixed in with the happiness of everyone else. Everyone else’s suffering is our suffering, too. And, we need to do something about that. There are two things that are needed for generosity. The first is compassion. The second is wisdom. Compassion is the desire to be of benefit to someone else. Wisdom is the understanding that’s necessary to be of benefit to someone else…to be of true benefit to somebody else. There are many people who operate – it’s easier for them to work from wisdom, but they have to work on their compassion. For others, it’s easy for them to operate from compassion; they have to work on their wisdom. I know we can all think of situations where a wise person, a very smart person was not compassionate. (---) But, working from compassion without wisdom, that’s a problem, too. My favorite example is that we were out at a restaurant and we had to wait for a table. It was a nice night so we thought we’d wait by the front door. A man came up to us and said, “Can you give me some money?” My wife, being a medical professional, looked at him and noticed some things about him and said, “You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?” He said, “Yes ma’m.” “I’m not going to give you that money because if I give you that money, you’re going to go buy some liquor, aren’t you?” “Yes, ma’m I am.” So, then she said, “Well, tell you what, I’ll go inside this restaurant, I’ll have them make you a sandwich, and I’ll give you that sandwich. Do you want that sandwich?” And, he said, “No, ma’m.” Giving that man money, that may have been the compassionate response, but that wasn’t the wise response because he’s not going to do something beneficial to himself or anybody else. He has a family; he’s not benefiting his family drinking that way. So, we’ve got to have the wisdom to work with the compassion. The second of the perfections is to observe the precepts. Now, this is necessary…there’s a joke – I’m sure you’ve all heard it – That probably the scariest words you can hear from another human being are “I’m here to help you.” So, if we want to be a benefit to people we’ve got to gain their trust. We’ve got to get them to trust us. But, how do we gain people’s trust? We observe the precepts. In our own behavior, in our own understanding, and how we interact with people – we have to be trustworthy. People have to look at us and know we’re not doing this just to enrich ourselves. We’re not doing this because we want to make ourselves better or put ourselves in a better position so we can be better than somebody else. We are on the Bodhisattva path because we truly want to be the benefit of someone else. And, when you see someone stealing how are you going to trust them? My grandfather was born in 1912. He was 17 years old when the crash hit in 1929. Here’s a young man looking at the rest of his life and literally the whole world came crashing down around him. He lived his 20’s during the pits of the depression. I remember asking him one time, “What got you through? What did it? How did you get through this awful time?” He said there really wasn’t one thing that helped get him through. He said the one thing he saw that destroyed more people than anything else was greed. Greed. Because when somebody was greedy – when somebody was hoarding something for themselves – people looked at that person and they said, “He doesn’t care about me, why should I help him? Why should I care about him?” And so, ironically, the person trying to do so much to help himself – what he thought was helping himself – brought him down. Nobody trusted him. Nobody wanted to help him. The only way people were able to get through that was by working with each other. So observing the precepts brings us the trust that we need in order to generate bodhisattvas. The next two of the perfections – patience and endurance – sometimes those get mixed up. Patience is “Well, OK, I can put up with this a little bit longer. You know, like the kid screaming on the airplane. Like, well, you know worse things have happened. I can deal with that.” Is that really patience or am I just enduring the chaos that’s going on around me? I don’t know. There’s a book we use in our study group in Lexington, it’s by Thich Nhat Hanh and it’s called Opening the Heart of the Lotus which I would recommend – a caveat, of course. He has a take on the Six Paramitas that I think is very interesting. He looks at the third paramita more as inclusiveness in that we see ourselves – as he puts it we see our hearts – as large enough that we can take in all the awful things that happen around us. The image he uses is that if you take a handful of salt and throw it in a cup of water – too salty, you can’t drink it. If you take a handful of salt and throw it in a lake and try to drink the water from the lake – there’s so much water in the lake the salt is spread out all over the place. Think of situations that seemed overwhelming. I can’t take this. I can’t stand this. And, these can be anything from the car won’t start in the morning to my father just died. There’s a huge difference between those two, of course, but there’s a certain sense of capacity we can have for each of those situations. The car won’t start in the morning, OK, I’ll call a friend of mine, or take the bus, or walk, or think of something else. I have the capacity to handle that situation. Some of the larger things in life, maybe I don’t have the capacity to handle that, but then again, maybe I need to call on somebody else. Maybe I need to increase my capacity again – go back to the first paramita of generosity and make that connection with somebody else. It can be an act of generosity to ask for someone’s help because it gives them the opportunity to be a benefit to you, just like you want to be a benefit to him. Now, the fourth paramita Thich Nhat Hanh looked at was diligence. And this is what the Buddha taught. There are four steps to diligence. The first is not to plant harmful seeds in one’s heart. Not to plant spite, ignorance, or anger in one’s heart. The second is not to nourish the damaging seeds that are in our heart because there won’t be room for other things. But, the third step of diligence is to plant beneficial seeds in our hearts. The fourth is to nourish the beneficial seeds in our hearts. And that takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of patience. The fifth of the perfections is meditation. I remember a story that Mike McCormick told me about going to the San JoseTemple. I guess there’s a belief out there – some people believe that only Zen Buddhists meditate. At the San JoseTemple where I first got started, they do meditation one Sunday out of the month and Michael said, “What’s this? You’re not Zen. Why are you meditating? What’s going on here?” The minister looked at him very matter-of-factly and said, “All Buddhists meditate.” And, I think that’s a practice we all need to cultivate. Even the Buddha meditated. In the Lotus Sutra he talks about how before he would teach he would go off and meditate for a while. Even the fully enlightened Buddha did meditation. That’s a practice we need to work on. Meditation is as fundamental an exercise as physical exercise. If you do meditation 15 minutes a day for one month, two months, three months – I guarantee you’ll notice a difference. I remember there’s a friend of ours who lives in India and comes to visit his daughter every year or so. And, I saw him once a year later and he walked up to me and said, “Oh, you must be doing lots of great meditation.” I didn’t understand what he was talking about. But to me it’s hard to see a change when it’s from the inside out. Meditation is extremely important. I recommend it to everybody. And this is a perfection you need in order to gain an insight into our habits. The habits we have developed – what are we doing? How are we reacting? Processing what’s going on – sitting still – getting the mind and the body in sync. What goes on in your mind affects your body. And, the other way around, too. If you keep your body still for a while – don’t move – then your mind will be still, too. The last of the perfections is wisdom and it’s said that this is the highest of the perfections. It is said that this is the perfection that pulls all the other perfections together. But, in away they all reflect each other. It’s like the six facets of a jewel – they’re all the same jewel. And, by wisdom what is meant is the Buddha’s wisdom. Now, this can seem huge – How are we going to become Buddhas – us imperfect, angry, ignorant, greedy people – how are we going to become Buddha’s? How are we going to do that? We’re going to do it. There’s an assurance we have from the Buddha. It’s going to happen. It takes patience, it takes endurance, and we have to be generous with people we don’t want to be generous with, and we have to pay attention to the habits we have learned to enjoy (like watching Law and Order). But, we’re going to become Buddhas and I think just knowing that – and not only are we going to become Buddhas, not only are we going to develop that Buddha wisdom – everybody is going to develop that Buddha wisdom. When we look at somebody as a potential Buddha – it’s like Chapter 20 of the Lotus Sutra, Never-Despising Bodhisattva – he saw everybody as a potential Buddha – the guy who cut him off in traffic, the guy who bumped into him at the grocery store, the who lied about him to his boss – that’s a potential Buddha. He’s going to become a Buddha – maybe not right now, but sometime. [When we think this way] it changes our perception of the world. And, knowing that we’re going to become Buddhas someday that changes how we look at ourselves. It gives us a lot more patience, a lot more endurance to know how it’s going to turn out. There are people who pay a lot of money to go off to do great adventures where they climb mountains, or ride bicycles for 300 miles, or go sleep in some nice hotel in Norway or someplace or another, or run a marathon…I’ve run a marathon and at some point in a marathon it’s not fun…it’s uncomfortable. We’ve all been through situations where at the time it’s not good, they’re uncomfortable, but because we know how it will turn out, it’s OK. Because we know we’re going to get to the top of that mountain, it’s OK. Because we know we’re going to get to that finish line, it’s OK. That’s the way it is with the Buddha practice. We’re going to become Buddhas. All that stuff that it’s going to take for us to go through that…that difficult, hostile, arduous – many lifetimes of practice – we’re going to get there. Now, I’ve been asked to talk about basic Buddhist concepts and I’ve put down here on my list dependent origination, the void and emptiness, all this other stuff. I have about 7 minutes left. How to do emptiness in 7 minutes? Stand here and say nothing, right? Well, my favorite example of emptiness is to consider a flame. Then, think about that flame. Is it a noun? Is it a thing? Is it a thing the way a bottle of water is a thing? What is that flame? That flame would not exist if it wasn’t for air, heat, and fuel. There are the three conditions necessary for that flame to exist. Without any one of those things, that flame is gone. Where did it go? Where does your lap go when you stand up? Does it go to hell? Does it go to heaven? Where does it go? This water, right?This water that’s in this bottle, what are the conditions necessary for it to exist? It’s got to have the bottling factory, the people, the water itself…How different are those conditions from the conditions that make the flame possible? One, they’re not free! But, if any one of those conditions didn’t exist, this bottle of water wouldn’t exist. Now comes the tough one. You and me. How are we different from the bottle of water? What are the conditions necessary for us to exist? Parents, food, air, a planet to live on, a society to live in…all those have to be in place or we don’t exist. If any one of those necessary conditions doesn’t exist anymore, we’re gone. Where did we go? There’s a big debate and it’s been going on since people began philosophizing…Do things exist or do things not exist? Are these things all real or are they just an illusion? Well, dependent origination is another way of looking at that whole question. In the sense that this cannot exist separately from the conditions, the causes of existence, nothing exists. If the conditions exist then this exists. But, something is here, then conditions do exist. The whole question if something exists or if something doesn’t exist is a false question. It’s not the real question. The real question is “What are the conditions?” And this is tremendously important when we look at our own lives. We can think of the states of our minds – are we happy? Are we unhappy? Are we greedy? Are we lonely? Are we sad? Do those states exist? Well, yeah. Of course they do. To tell somebody [those states] don’t exist is awful. [When somebody feels that way, that feeling exists for them.] But, the feeling has causes. The feeling has conditions that make it last, that make it endure. And, it won’t go on forever. Other conditions will come to replace it. The hardest things about suffering are that number 1 that it’s going to last forever – it’s going to be like this forever. Number 2, I’m the only one feeling that way. Nobody else can feel the way I feel. Suffer. Suffer. I’m a sufferer. And, that gets me to the last of the Buddha’s teaching [for this lecture]. The Three Seals of the Dharma: Number 1- impermanence, nothing lasts forever. Nothing is permanent. This bottle of water – it isn’t going to last forever. Nothing has an ego – egolessness [selflessness]. It’s close to impermanence, but it’s more personal, right? We feel like there’s this thing inside us that makes us the same person today that we were yesterday. And it’s not the id I carry in my wallet. It’s the sense that I have of my self, my ego, my personhood, my identity. Identity – what a great word. You know, the best description I’ve come up with about the Buddha’s enlightenment – and I understand this but I can’t do it – he couldn’t identify with his father. He couldn’t say, “I’m my father’s son.” He couldn’t identify with his clan – I’m not just a Shakya. He couldn’t identify with his country. He couldn’t identify with his species, for crying out loud. He had to identify with everything past, present, and future. He wouldn’t even talk about himself in the first person. He wouldn’t say “I”. [----]. If we can identify with the person pushing the grocery cart down the street the same way we identify with Donald Trump {---] – but, if we can identify with everything, the stars, realms, everything, that’s when we reach Buddha Nature. I have no idea of what that means, but I think that’s when we reach Buddha Nature. And then we get to the third Dharma Seal – Nirvana is the essence. Nirvana is the essence. What the heck does that mean? Nirvana is the Buddha’s enlightenment. This is the big “N” Nirvana, not the little “n” nirvana. That’s the Buddha’s wisdom. That’s where we’re going. That’s what we’re working towards. Question: Where did enlightenment come from? Did it come from God-Energy? That’s an excellent question. When people asked the Buddha “Where are you?” – because there was a belief in Hinduism that there were these gods that walked among them – that Krishna would come down and walk among them [----] – When the Buddha was asked what he was – all he could say is “I’m awakened.” That’s what the term Buddha means – awakened one. It meant that there was an illusion he had been living in. There’s Mara that shows up in the Lotus Sutra and in other Sutras – kind of like the Buddhist equivalent of the devil, of Satan – Mara simply means illusion. And, the understanding I have of what Buddha reached was getting free of that illusion. Getting a true understanding – I see the world as what’s really going on around me. Now, what caused that? The only thing he could come up with was the “ever present Buddha.” That there was some – to our limited understanding we can call it force, we can call it – I don’t know what. But there is something that is working in the universe all the time that was manifesting itself in him when he became enlightened. Now, what I feel like when I’m chanting Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo – that’s when the Eternal Buddha is speaking for me. I’m attempting right now, while I’m talking to you all, is to let that spirit of the Eternal Buddha through me. And, that’s something we all have access to – it’s not just something that only the Buddha was able to tap into – it’s something we all have access to as much as we want. I don’t know if that was much of an answer – I don’t think there was some external power. Let me put it that way. There’s a whole internal/external duality that is probably as convoluted as dependent origination – but the best sense I can make out of it is that there’s something outside us that’s working through us. And, again, through meditation, through our practice, the more we are able to cultivate that, to work through that, that’s when we get closer to enlightenment. Question: [Unintelligible] A few years ago my wife and I went to see that Harrison Ford movie – The Fugitive – now by standards of other movies coming out, like Kill Bill that was pretty mild – there were some fights, there was a train wreck, a guy got shot – and we walked out of that movie (now we don’t go to see a lot of movies) – and we were just numb from all the violence in that. That to me is [---] because I think we put ourselves in situations where we’re fighting all the time, we’re in this combative situation, and a lot of people get a real thrill out of going into combat and coming out the winner…they may lose every once in a while…but there’s that thrill of victory…So to me, it can be physical, it can be emotional – and again, we need to be looking at what effect do these things have on us. And, that’s where meditation comes in. To be able to sit apart for a while and reflect. There are a million situations I go into and come out saying “Why did I do that?” “Why did I say that?” These are the habits – we’re creatures of habit – if we had to process every single thing – all the input that’s coming in right now – it ain’t going to happen. So, as human beings we have come up with patterns of behavior to react to situations as they happen around us…and that takes us back to diligence – are those habits good seeds or are they harmful seeds. Do you want to cultivate good habits? Do you want to hold back on bad habits? My biggest bad habit is watching Law & Order – but that’s fairly benign. But, again, what are we doing to ourselves? Where is the reality? [---] And, that’s another thing – so I watch Law & Order and that makes me a bad person. In order to become Buddhas – we have to be as generous with ourselves as we are with others. So, finding ourselves in a bad habit, that’s when we have to say, there’s a difference between this thing I’m doing who I am. I am way more than anything I do. So, when I find myself doing something I shouldn’t be doing – Great! – Quit doing it! Now, figure out how to get out of that habit that makes me do it. But, at the same time having faith to know I can do this. If something needs change, I can change it. I am not destined or fated – God didn’t punish me and make me like this because… [---] |