Change, real change, first comes from within

Buddhism is mainly concerned with the world inside of us and the mental activity going on.  This is where our problems have their beginning according to Buddhism.  The pains and joys we feel over time we have become deeply attached to.  When we feel pain we want a quick fix.  It could be with drugs or alcohol.  Or maybe we want to change what we imagine is bringing us this inner pain and grief.  Perhaps we imagine a political solution to our angst. 

We also want lasting joy and happiness, too; a chance to fulfill our dreams and sexual desires and to have a family.  We even try to imagine a happy life for ourself in the future; a world we are working for where there will be no pollution and everyone will be listening to the same music walking in lock step.

The bad news—this kind of attitude and perspective is not going to free us in the long run.  To be blunt, it is naive and immature. Things are only going to get worse, much worse, if we continue to think this way.  We are setting ourself up to crash and burn.  We have become closed minded and self-deceived among other things.  Our educational system can't help us either.  

There are many kinds of thoughts we harbor and feed upon which in the long run work against the Mind of enlightenment (bodhicitta).  For example, there is the thought of attachment which has recourse to accepting a variety of desires.  Then there is the thought of non-attachment which has recourse to avoiding desire, strictly.  There is the thought of hatred which depends on aversion and the thought of practicing friendliness and avoiding unfriendliness.  There is the thought of stupidity which depends upon a lack of self- reflection and the thought of intelligence which depends upon great understanding.  There are many more kinds of thought.  But all such thoughts (some sixty) have to be transcended to reach the Mind of enlightenment.

Let’s be honest, most of us are incompetent and irresponsible when it comes to taking care of the world within us which is why we decided to become Buddhists joining a Zen Buddhist community or a Tibetan Buddhist community.  But even when we joined, most of us had our minds already made up about what we wanted and expected from Buddhism before we read a single page of a Buddhist discourse.  The majority of Buddhist practitioners don’t really want to adapt too much to Buddhism; not if it means change at a fundamental level.

If Buddhism has taught me anything over these many years that is applicable to today’s pseudo-crises it is this:  our first duty is to change ourself rather than trying to change what is outside of ourself.  I had to give up a lot to see what Siddhartha saw.  How else would I see it?  I wasn't looking for a situation where I wanted Buddhism to adapt to me.  That's going against the Way, the Way being a religious course which first acknowledges ultimate reality, then sets out to realize it. 

Comments

[Jack]

"The majority of Buddhist practitioners don’t really want to adapt too much to Buddhism; not if it means change at a fundamental level."

Exhibit A: All the Western Buddhists who - usually unconsciously - take refuge in political liberalism over and above refuge in dharma. Aging boomer Buddhists who think John Lennon, Martin Luther King and all their other 60s idols were bodhisattvas. Their triple refuge apparently is anti-racism, feminism, and free love. They will venerate a teacher as an incarnate god because "ooh foreign exotic Asian wow" right up until they hear something that goes against this political orthodoxy. That's why Eckhart Tolle says that women are naturally closer to God than men - he knows his Oprah audience, and gives them what they want. And they make him very, very rich.

[aryeh]

https://archive.org/details/WhoAmI-RamanaMaharshiEnglishAudiobook