#john snelling

‘The person that desires to have only pleasure and refuses pain expends an enormous amount of energy resisting life - and at the same time misses out on it enormously. He or she is on a self-defeating mission in any case, for just as we evade certain forms of suffering we inevitably fall victim of others. Underlying our glitzy modern consumer culture there is a deep spiritual undernourishment and malaise that manifests all kinds of symptoms: nervous disorders, loneliness, alienation, purposelessness…  So blanking out, running away, burying our heads in the sand or videotape will take us nowhere in the long run. If we really want to solve our problems - and the world’s problems, for they stem from the same roots - we must open up and accept the reality of suffering with full awareness, as it strikes us, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually in the hear-now. Then strange as it may seem, we reap vast rewards. For suffering has its positive side. From it we derive the experience of depth: of the fullness of our humanity. This puts us fully in touch with other people and the rest of the Universe.’

'The Buddha' by John Snelling. Buddha found that there was more within than just the flotsam and jetsam of his own egotism.

The Buddha was born a prince in northern India about two and a half thousand years ago. Upset by the dark side of life — by old age, sickness, death — he quit his palaces to look for a solution to the problem. of suffering. After many years of searching without success, he finally sat down in meditation under a great peepul tree.

Suppose a man, wandering in a forest wilderness found an ancient…

‘The person that desires to have only pleasure and refuses pain expends an enormous amount of energy resisting life - and at the same time misses out on it enormously. He or she is on a self-defeating mission in any case, for just as we evade certain forms of suffering we inevitably fall victim of others. Underlying our glitzy modern consumer culture there is a deep spiritual undernourishment and malaise that manifests all kinds of symptoms: nervous disorders, loneliness, alienation, purposelessness…  So blanking out, running away, burying our heads in the sand or videotape will take us nowhere in the long run. If we really want to solve our problems - and the world’s problems, for they stem from the same roots - we must open up and accept the reality of suffering with full awareness, as it strikes us, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually in the hear-now. Then strange as it may seem, we reap vast rewards. For suffering has its positive side. From it we derive the experience of depth: of the fullness of our humanity. This puts us fully in touch with other people and the rest of the Universe.’

‘The Buddha stressed the dynamic nature of existence. This resonates with the ideas of some early Greek philosophers, such as Heraclitus, who maintained that “All is flux” and “You can’t step into the same river twice.”

Now, all this sounds like common sense. Yet there is something about our minds and emotions that kick against the idea of change. We are forever trying to break the dynamic world-dance, which is a unity, into separate “things,” which we then freeze in the ice of thought. But the world-dance doggedly refuses to remain fragmented and frozen. It swirls on, changing from moment to moment, laughing at all our pitiful attempts to organize and control it.

In order to live skillfully, in harmony with the dynamic Universe, it is essential to accept the reality of change and impermanence. The wise person therefore travels lightly, with a minimum of clutter, maintaining the proverbial “open mind” in all situations, for he or she knows that tomorrow’s reality will not be the same as today’s. he or she will have learned the divine art of letting go - which means not being attached to people and possessions and situations, but rather, when the time for parting comes, allowing that to happen graciously.’

‘Have confidence in your own spiritual potentiality, you ability to find your own unique way. Learn from others certainly, and use what you find useful, but also learn to trust your own inner wisdom. Have courage. Be awake and aware. Remember too that Buddhism is not about being a Buddhist; that is, obtaining a new identity tag. Nor is it about collecting head-knowledge, practices and techniques. It is ultimately about letting go of all forms and concepts and becoming free.’

‘About twelve years ago I was told that I had a form of cancer. It was a great shock, of course - for we all secretly think we’re immortal, don’t we?... that in our special case the god’s won’t give the fateful thumbs down. Yet there I was at thirty-one having to face the fact that I was subject to sickness and death. There followed a period of great emotional turmoil, but one sunny morning I woke up to find I’d come through and could accept the fact. Actually, this was an important discovery: human beings can face death with equanimity... Well, in the event, I didn’t die. I’ve spent a lot of hospitals and undergoing unpleasant drug and radiation treatment, but I’ve kept going - with a little help (and hindrance) from my friends...

I’ve got to admit right away that these last twelve years have been unarguably the richest and fullest of my whole life. Cancer and the knowledge of mortality threw things into proper perspective for me, showed me what the real priorities were, helped me to grow and deepen as a human being. I also found my way to an authentic spiritual life.

Unfortunately, one of the ills of modern society is that it’s in headlong flight from the truth of the human condition, from the fact that we all, without exception, are subject to old age, sickness and death. Witness the cult of eternal youth that’s so frantically marketed these days: the pills and potions that promise unlimited energy and vitality; the magazine articles and media programmes that purport to explain how to live longer, look younger and cram a maximum of sun and pleasure into every hour. Before long it may well become a punishable offence to be old or ill or tired!

I don’t want to be a killjoy and pretend that life doesn’t have its lighter side. That’s certainly there and to be gratefully enjoyed. But our problem is that we want the lighter side only. So we saturate ourselves with every kind of entertainment and diversion in order not to have to face the dark side. We venerate, not sages or men of wisdom, but pop, TV and sports stars, people whose job it is - and a very well-paid job too - to divert us from, rather than alert us to the realities of our predicament. We’ve made a virtual religion of triviality. And we wonder why a gnawing sense of unease haunts our days and nights, and why our children, complaining of boredom rebel.

Anyone who’s had a brush with cancer will become painfully aware of this universal flight from the dark side of life. For other people don’t generally want to know about the disease. It’s something you mainly just don’t talk about. It can lose you your friends, your job, your husband or wife. For the truth of human beings isn’t simple. They don’t neatly divide into goodies and baddies. people can be dreadful - and wonderful. And sometimes the same person can be extremely kind - and extremely unkind.

What we perhaps need to rediscover is that there’s frankly something ultimately unsatisfying about mere happiness. The great Iris poet, W.B. Yeats, once observed that our lives really begin when we discover that human existence is basically tragic. It’s only when we get an inkling of its true grandeur and challenge, and appreciate the awesome duty we own our fellow human beings, our companions in this wonderfully strange and mysterious business.

It’s also true that only in extremis do we genuinely begin to uncover the spiritual dimension. In Christianity there’s a saying: Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. So too in Buddhism, a full appreciation of the fact of dukkha, suffering, is the beginning of the road that leads to the city of wisdom. It’s when the message hits is hard that we’re only temporary sorjourners in this world that we awaken to the fact that there’s something larger and more magnificent than our petty selves at play here.

It’s a sad fact that we all must die. But as a wise man once remarked: ‘If we lived forever, then we really would have problems!’

'If the basic project of mainstream Buddhist practice is to unmask the ego illusion for what it is, one of the main prongs of attack is directed against desire. Desire gets a very bad press in Buddhist scriptures. It is a poison, a disease, a madness. There is no living in a body that is subject to desire, for it is like a blazing house.

Now, desire lives and grows by being indulged. When not indulged by the application of ethical restraint and awareness, on the other hand, it stabilizes and begins to diminish, though this is not an easy or comfortable process. for the old urges clamor for satisfaction for a long time.

This kind of practice cuts directly against the main currents of modern consumer society, where desire is energetically encouraged and refined to new pitches and variations by the powerful agencies of marketing and publicity. But it also cuts against the more moderate desires - for family, wealth, sense-pleasures and so on sanctioned in simpler, more traditional societies, including the one into which the Buddha was born. We can never be at peace while desire is nagging at us.'