20 MINUTES TO MASTER … BUDDHISM. Kulananda

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СКАЧАТЬ before we ourselves can honestly say that we experience the identity of samsara and nirvana. For us samsara is here and nirvana is a state beyond the horizon of our current being, at the far end of a spiritual path which we can, if we chose, begin to tread.

      To see the Three Marks of Conditioned Existence for ourselves – to realize their truth, not just intellectually but from the depths of our being, allowing our behaviour to be changed by that insight – is to have a meaningful glimpse of Perfect Vision and to take the first step along the Eightfold Path.

      THE PATH OF TRANSFORMATION

      Perfect Emotion

      We can often see the truth of something quite clearly at an intellectual level, but we have deep emotional investments which keep us from acting on them. Most smokers, for example, know quite clearly that smoking is killing them and they should quit, but at a deeper, more emotional, less conscious level they have no intention whatever of stopping smoking. We are not moved by reason alone. Time and again we can see that the emotions are, in fact, stronger than reason, and if we want to do anything of any significance we can only do so with the full co-operation of the emotional side of our nature. For most of us, the central problem of the spiritual life is to find emotional equivalents for our intellectual understanding. For this reason, Perfect Emotion, samma-samkalpa, comes as the first step after Perfect Vision.

      Samkalpa is often translated as ‘resolve’, or ‘intention’, or ‘thought’, but it is more like ‘will’. It stands for the harmonization of the whole emotional and volitional side of our being with our vision of the true nature of existence.

      Perhaps as a result of the theistic background of western culture, we tend to think, however unconsciously, that we are somehow fixed and unable to really change. ‘I am as I am – take me or leave me.’ Perhaps somewhere behind all this lurks the idea that ‘I am as God made me and I can’t do anything about it.’ Buddhism, however, suggests that there is no divine plan. What we are now is the result of the conditions which have preceded us, and by changing some of the conditions in the present we can change ourselves for the future. In other words we can consciously set out to change our emotional state for the better.

      The Buddhist tradition has evolved a vast range of practices which are intended to generate more positive mental and emotional states. I explain some of these in Chapter 5.

      Perfect Speech

      In the West we tend to divide the individual human being into body and mind, or perhaps body, mind and soul. In Buddhism, however, the traditional division of a person is into body, speech and mind.

      In all of nature, speech is the sole prerogative of human beings, and human culture depends upon it – through speech our mothers and teachers educated us, and almost all of our culture depends upon one or another form of vocal or textual expression. Speech gives shape to the world we live in. In naming things we colour them in a particular way, and in expressing our thoughts and feelings we make them part of the public domain we move in. What we express is a large part of who we are and how our world is.

      It is very useful experience to keep silent for a few days – avoiding books, television and conversation – and to see what effect that has on your mental state. If conditions are right, as on some Buddhist retreats, most people find that sustained silence has a deeply clarifying and energizing effect.

      But we are rarely silent. To live in the world is to speak, and because our speech has such a profound effect on us and on the world around us, it too must be transformed in the light of our glimpse of Perfect Vision. Perfect Speech, therefore, is speech which is first of all true.

      If you speak delusions, everything becomes a delusion;

      If you speak the truth, everything becomes the truth.

      Outside the truth there is no delusion,

      But outside delusion there is no special truth.

      Followers of the Buddha’s Way!

      Why do you earnestly seek the truth in distant places?

      Look for delusion and truth in the bottom of your own hearts.2

      To follow the Path indicated by our glimpse of Perfect Vision means to always uphold the truth in every situation, however uncomfortable that may be.

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