April 12, 2013

  • In Praise Of The Blissed Out Buddhist

    @The Sutra Dude…this one’s for you!

     

    Yesterday, Sutra Dude did a blog on his introduction to Buddhism, and reading it, it rang a lot of bells…so I thought I would run with the topic.

    Xanga is a microcosm of the macrocosm…to a certain extent. But it only reflects a more affluent world, where people have net access, power to run computers, and oh yes, the leisure time to actually express your thoughts, and ideas. In the US alone, that means only 60 percent of our population. Forty percent—very nearly HALF do not. They still have lives, and opinions…but they are more or less ignored by our Face-booking, Twittering, Blogging population. When you have a community, it becomes easy to assume others think as you do…and we also tend to group with those who share our ideas and core beliefs. I am private about my views on spiritual matters. I get offended when someone decides to proselytize, because it is not something I am comfortable being shared with, anymore than I would invite someone to tell me all about their sex lives…in streaming details. Hey, if you feel the need to share, fine…it’s just not something I want to be included in, unless I specifically, and overtly request it. (Which I don’t.)

     

    But You become aware of people’s belief’s in subtle ways—even when they don’t get in your face.

    Now lest you take the wrong meaning from the title of this, I am deeply impressed by the “blissed out”. (And be aware…I am not a Buddhist…my comments are based on observation…I do not claim to be an expert.) Sutra Dude spoke about how he attended a gathering—and how it impacted on him. It was not a bolt from the blue, Paul at Tarsus conversion moment…it was more subtle. It’s taken him years to acquire his inner peace, but it began with one instance.

    The Blissed Out are not interested in converting anyone. They don’t have fortune cookie, t-shirt, or bumper sticker dogma to share, and they never claim to own the “one answer”, or the sole truth in the universe. When they find their center, they have the absolute gift of shutting out the world…and even tuning out their own thoughts to connect with…well…everything there is. Sounds confusing, I know. But I get it.

    Consider your “normal day”. You are bombarded with messages, media, emotions, impressions, all kinds of stimulus, internal and external, from the second you open your eyes.  The only time most people are not thinking on some level, or reacting to all of this is when they are sleeping. But you can’t go through a normal day without…noise? Static? All that STUFF. One of the hardest things to do is to turn it all off. When we try, thoughts keep popping into our heads. YIKES. Now normally I advocate thought…even deep thought. I am a HUGE fan of thinking. But…sometimes, you need to clear the decks, and increasingly, it is difficult to do so.

    The Blissed Out can. It’s not non-thought. It’s the ability (hard won) to actually step out, and away…not to escape, but to reach a place of better understanding…enlightenment, if you will. But there are no short cuts. There is no “10 Steps to Perfect Bliss”, or Being One for Dummies”. The Path is not the same for any two humans…and you can’t follow in anyone else’s footsteps. No one size fits all (or most). No map that actually points out the trail. It begins with Know Thyself. Two small words…but two such IMPOSSIBLE words. We grow up, try to improve, re-invent, re-package, and constantly are in the process of becoming someone new…a better us…which presumes that there is something WRONG with who we already are. Only we spend so much time trying to be someone else, that we have no real awareness of ourselves.

    Buddha would laugh…kindly.

    Being alone…without being lonely.

    Being with someone else, not because you need someone to complete you—but because they are something or someone that already feel like they are part of you. Not gaping holes…connections.

    The Blissed Out already have reached the place where the whole of everything is a gorgeous lattice—they see the connections, and recognize how great, and how tiny a thing each life is. They aren’t worried about “rewards” or punishments. Their behavior is not from fear of reprisal. They just flow…and it’s really stunning to watch the calm of them. They can embrace any human emotion…but they are choosy about which they will hold. Negative energy consumes too much of their lives, so they tend to step away from it. Some people wear their anger…their hurt, or their disappointments. They clutch the bad stuff to themselves like a teddy bear…afraid to let go.  

    The blissed out have learned to sift out the hubris. They are aware of what each emotion, each stimulus, each thing we allow into ourselves costs. And they accept only what they wish to let in.

    Sort of mind blowing, no? It’s all about awareness…choice, and the colossal act of “letting go”. Imagine NOT being the center of the universe for once…and discovering that in doing so, you are suddenly free…price beyond rubies!

    So for the skeptical, Buddhists are not perfect…but they are MUCH less likely to add to your angst than someone else, who assumes they know what you need on a Cosmic level. So Sutra Dude…am I close?

     

     

     

Comments (5)

  • Great post. Thanks for writing it. 

    To your question, “Am I close?” I can only answer from my perspective based on the Buddhism I practice. You are spot on concerning one aspect and close on the other. The spot on part first. 

    What I’ve learned and experienced is that everything is interconnected. Every action taken effects the world in some way and we don’t see how far reaching an action or word spoken can be. Everything is a “gorgeous lattice” as you put it although in spite of the adjective “gorgeous” there are struggles, challenges and obstacles to face but we all know that. 

    Now the close part. 

    The Buddhism I practice has 3 parts, faith, practice and study. Let me first clarify faith in Buddhism. It is simply found in the first step when I say, “Okay I’ll try the practice and see what happens.” If nothing happened there would be no reason to continue. When we go to sleep at night we have faith the alarm clock will go off in the morning and wake us up. If it doesn’t we might check it and give it another chance or two. If it still doesn’t work we look for another alarm clock. The point I want to make is that in Buddhism faith is not faith in something accepted to be though we don’t experience it. When I began practicing and something did happen I thought, okay if that can happen let me see if this other thing I have in mind can happen. No matter how many times we experience effects of the practice we still look to the next with faith. Just as after the alarm clock and the snooze button have worked without fail for 3 months we feel more confident about the alarm clock, as experiences accumulate our faith strengthens. We usually don’t think about it but we live on faith every day. I go out to my car and have faith it will start because it’s started every day for a long time. If the car doesn’t start one day, doesn’t a few days later and a few days after that my confidence that the car will start this morning is not as strong as it was. Of course we know a car will eventuallynot start anymore. I use the analogies to explain faith in Buddhism. 

    Practice is for oneself and for others. We help others practice. We do things in our communities. We also practice for ourselves. The two go hand in hand because we are all interconnected. 

    I’ve wandered a bit but I’m getting to the “close” part. Bliss is not a word I would use to describe the goal of this Buddhism. Bliss is something we all experience in life but it is momentary. At some point the bliss fades or the other shoe drops. Enlightenment is a life condition of unshakable wisdom and indestructible happiness. When we chant, which is part of the practice we make determinations and in chanting bring that determination up from the depths of our lives. It’s very dynamic and the opposite of escaping from the world. We determine based on whatever we want to see or make happen in our lives then we go out into the world and take steps, otherwise known as making causes, toward our dreams and goals. The world begins to move in the direction we need. The term “esho funi” means “the oneness of oneself and one’s environment”. When we make the cause in our own life of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo with determination the world responds. This is part of “the experiences” I mentioned. We chant to find a job and unexpectedly bump into someone who helps make that happen, to throw a random example out there. We chant for our own dreams. We chant for the dreams of others we know and love. We all do the same practice in the same way but here is where we maintain our individuality. 

    We all have our own dreams and desires which while similar are unique to each person. I might be chanting to get married while the guy sitting next to me might be chanting to get divorced. I like that random example because it strikes me as funny. Someone might be chanting for her marriage to improve while the person sitting next to her is chanting for the full recovery of a sick loved one. 

    Experiences like getting the job or the girlfriend are called conspicuous benefits of the practice but simultaneously there is inner change, inconspicuous benefit, taking place, a purification process through which our lives shine more and more. Nichiren Daishonin described the process as polishing a tarnished mirror. It becomes brighter and brighter as you polish it. We are polishing our lives.  

    The practice of this Buddhism does not lead to escape from the world. It is the opposite. We shine ever more brightly from our deepest source and thus create more and more value in the world. It doesn’t matter what one’s profession is or one’s life style or sexual preferences. One’s age makes no difference nor do one’s personal desires. We come to the table as we are, do the practice and our lives develop, the world responds. 

    One last thing. “Kosen Rufu” means “world peace based on the true happiness of individuals”. Many of other faiths and philosophies understand this principal. Gandhi for example famously said, be the change you want to see in the world. 

  • Oh and here’s a mini! 

  • Why thank you sir!

    My own path took an amazing form…twists and turns I never expected. Part was the rigor of finding myself the parent of special needs child. You get SERIOUSLY zen about stuff when you never know what’s coming…when you can’t take for granted anything that everyone else just accepts as “normal”. But your joys are greater…when you don’t expect it. Your happiness deeper, when you don’t believe you have it coming. You can’t help your child when you’re feeling pissed off, or short changed. But it’s all part of it.

    Sometimes you have to just be able to say baldly without shame…

    I HATE this shit

    . The trick is letting go, once you have. You learn that you can’t accept, without letting go of guilt, and blame. You can’t really love if you are ashamed. And one day you really get it. Stuff got EASIER when you let go of all that baggage and debris. It frees you to focus.

    And all this makes me think there is a book in here, somewhere…The Zen Of Special Needs…a primer for families…

  • A lot of folks are aware of the pre-canned spew of Buddhism other wise known as Nicheren Buddhism and it is just one of million types of Buddhism.

    The basics also vary as much as basic Christianity. One highly recommended “Buddhist” book is the Zen of motorcycle maintenence by Robert Pirsig:
    http://design.caltech.edu/erik/Misc/pirsig.pdf
    (copy and paste because I don’t trust xanga’s link system)

  • @hoodr2943 - I have deleted the link. My apologies, but I will not allow my blog to be used for spam…even well intentioned spam.

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