A Buddha's View

Buddhists, bear with me…you already know about this. For my non-Buddhist readers, I want to explain two key Buddhist terms before I launch into any more topical issues. The first concept is the mutual possession of the Ten Worlds. The ten worlds (or conditions of Life) are hell, hunger, animality, anger, humanity, rapture, learning, realization, bodhisattva, and Buddhahood. (For a more extensive explanation, you can check out the SGI Dictionary of Buddhism, http://www.sgilibrary.org/search_dict.php.)

In short form, hell is a state in which your life is all misery and suffering; it’s slavery in its most extreme form, in which all your actions tend only to make matters worse. In the world of hunger, you cannot be satisfied; it’s the world of addiction, where nothing is ever enough. In the condition of animality, you revert to your basest instincts of kill or be killed; everyone else is an enemy or a potential enemy to be erased or at least subdued (or sucked up to, if too strong). In the world of anger, your ego becomes overpowering; there is no room for anyone else’s feeling or point of view. These four worlds comprise the “four evil paths”.

Things look up a bit as you “ascend” (more on that in a moment) to the next world, humanity. This is the state of a “good person”, who tries to control his/her emotions, think rationally, get along well with others, and who also aspires to an even higher life state. Then we have rapture…also known as “heaven”; it’s that wonderful feeling you get when a desire is realized or when you’re relieved of suffering. But that’s not as good as it gets! In fact, these two worlds added to the four evil paths comprise the “six paths”, and are still considered “lower worlds”. That’s because when we’re in these conditions we are subject to influence; you could say we’re at the mercy of our surroundings, so that we can go from humanity to anger in a nanosecond, or plummet from rapture to hell faster than the blink of an eye.

Next up? The “four noble paths”, beginning with the world of learning…it’s that condition where you are not satisfied with the status quo of the six paths, when you determine to be a better person and start finding out how. Realization, the next world, is when you put your research to use; as you begin to understand the nature of your existence, you make the causes necessary to improve it.

Sound better still? Yes, BUT. In the old days, such persons were considered incapable of attaining Buddhahood, because they tended to become excessively concerned with themselves, enchanted with their own growing wisdom…smug. Not so good after all…which leads us to the condition, or world, of bodhisattva. As a bodhisattva, you realize that your happiness is connected to others’ happiness…even that you cannot be truly happy unless you are also helping others become happy. This is the world of compassion; it encompasses, yet transcends, all the preceding worlds.

Which brings us to the world of Buddhahood. This is a state of absolute freedom, of boundless compassion, of being fully attuned to the nature of life. Early interpretations of the sutras regarded “the Buddha” as a deity; the state of Buddhahood was thought to be removed and discrete from the reality of human suffering. Likewise, each of the ten worlds was thought to be separate from the others; a person whose life tended to manifest a particular state was generally regarded to be “stuck” there. The best he might hope for was to somehow “move up” in his next life. (I’m using “he” because women weren’t even considered part of the equation.) Fortunately, T’ient’ai, a 6^th century Chinese scholar, realized this was not the case at all.

In fact, each of the worlds contains and is contained by each of the others. When I first started practicing Buddhism, I had a hard time grasping this. The idea of the Ten Worlds was easy, especially when emerging once again from the world of anger and feeling that my inner Buddha was as distant as a star. But “mutual possession”? Huh? How’s that work?

I tried to come up with various ways to describe it. I thought of circles within circles…colors…no analogy seemed completely apt. But it’s such an important principle; I want to understand it fully. My latest idea is to consider Buddhahood as a stage production, with each world represented by an actor. Each actor has a role to play, has a “star turn”…and each is an understudy of all the other parts. The audience sees a continuously changing cast of alternating heroes and villains. The killer in today’s Act II becomes the rescuer in tomorrow’s Act I. Today you’re hissed and booed; tomorrow your path is strewn with flowers. But then the next day you may be in for more hisses…it’s all in the part you choose to play.

Because none of us is all good or all evil. We all (no exceptions) have the capacity for both. The ideal of Buddhism is to make Buddhahood your prevailing condition. As a human, this can seem impossible. One manifests one’s Buddhahood through bodhisattva behavior, resisting the urge to fall back on the “I’m only human” defense (but I am! We are!)…or worse yet, wallow in the evil paths. But with the mutual possession, even when one is playing the villain, there’s still a hero inside…however deeply buried. And that’s why we have to help each other bring out that hero. That’s the bodhisattva way.

Remember the old parable of the blind men and the elephant? Each of them gropingly encounters a different part of the elephant, attempts to describe the entirety based on his limited experience, and (at least in some versions) they end up in violent disagreement as to the true nature of the elephant. Our state of life colors our perceptions in much the same way; when in hell, all the world seems hellish. When in rapture, the world seems beautiful. When angry, we see angry people everywhere. And so on… In another version of the elephant story, the men are not blind, but they encounter the elephant in a dark room with the same results. I’m now imagining the ten worlds as those people in the dark room with the elephant with eyes shut and blindfolds on…Hell, Hunger, Animality and Anger duly touch the elephant, draw their conclusions, and get into a huge fight over it. Humanity tries to stay out of it, tries to calm them down, and wonders what else to do. Rapture’s blindfold slips, but won’t come off all the way. Learning manages to get the blindfold off and eyes open. Realization finds the light switch. Bodhisattva turns on the light, helps the others take off their blindfolds, and encourages them to open their eyes.

Buddhahood? Well, Buddhahood always knows about the elephant. Buddhahood always sees the elephant. Buddhahood is something that’s inside all of us, and within all of those other worlds. Attaining Buddhahood isn’t like climbing a ladder, with each of lower worlds representing a rung. We don’t attain it so much as reveal it, just as the elephant is revealed. All we have to do is take off the blindfolds, open our eyes, and turn on the light.

Yeah, I heard a funny thing
Somebody said to me
“You know that I could be in love with almost everyone
I think that people are
The greatest fun”
And I will be alone again tonight my dear

Yeah, that’s from a song. “Alone Again Or”, a love song (of a sort), and a Love song (written by Bryan MacLean of Love…the band). In our culture, we are inundated with the concept of love: the need for it, the damage caused by lack of it, the gaining and the losing of it, etc. It’s not just the songs; movies, books, television, all speak to us of the necessity of love. If you don’t find your other half, you are doomed to a miserable, pathetic, lonely existence (you will never have “a life”). Of course, what most of them mean by “love” is what’s come to be known as romantic love, the idea that two people find each other somehow across the universe and complete each other, two halves of a whole. There’s someone out there for everyone, and all you need do is, oh, transcend time, space and reality and you will somehow find the one. You will be together forever, you will always love each other, and you will always be happy. Relationship problems? Must not be the one. Better keep looking…

I’m sure it’s no newsflash to anyone that having such an expectation almost always leads to broken hearts, failed relationships, and unhappiness all around. You may have found your ‘soul mate’, but eventually you will have to realize that keeping him/her requires work. Your ‘soul mate’ also happens to be a human being, a separate person of flesh and blood and differing opinions and…belches and farts. Ah, romance…

But what does ‘love’ mean to a Buddhist? Buddhism views all people as possessing the capacity for enlightenment, or Buddhahood, the condition of absolute happiness. The closest concept in Buddhism to this idea of “love” is the lower world of rapture. It’s considered a lower world because it is transient…not meant to last. The idea of a “soul mate” doesn’t really work either, because Buddhism does not support the idea of an eternal soul, at least not as is commonly meant. In Buddhism, life itself is eternal; the manifestation of an individual human life at a particular time, in a particular place, and in a particular form, results from the accumulation of causes made in one’s previous life (karma). One’s next life will manifest as an accumulation of causes made in this life, and so on and so on throughout eternity. While there is a certain level of continuity, there is no fixed, unchanging eternal soul that either ascends to heaven and finds its other half there, or is reborn again and again to resume the search on earth. Though it seems likely that the people we meet in each lifetime were known to us in previous lifetimes, in our current manifestation we can’t really know that for certain. To fixate on finding that “missing half” (as well as dwelling on who we were in past lives, and/or what evil karma we might have created) is detrimental to our present happiness. What’s important is to focus on one’s present existence, keeping the future in mind because it is shaped by the choices we are making now.

But what about the Love song? Are there really people who can “be in love with almost everyone”? And is that a good thing? What is love, anyway? Buddhism recognizes the idea of love, but not as life’s purpose. That would be the enlightenment (Buddhahood) that we work toward, a process that emphatically includes helping others to achieve enlightenment as well. Buddhahood, as defined by the Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism, is “a state of complete access to the boundless wisdom, compassion, courage, and other qualities inherent in life; with these one can create harmony with and among others and between human life and nature.” However, it must be remembered that a Buddha is not a deity; we can attain this state of life as the common mortals that we are. In theory, I suppose we could “be in love with almost everyone” (or anyone) in this happy state. But because we are also common mortals, we are constantly at war with our lesser selves. We feel as though we are at the mercy of our desires, and our desires lead us to particular people, not anyone and everyone, when we love.

There’s nothing wrong with desire; the pursuit of our desires fuels our lives. It’s the attachment to those desires (and even worse, setting a timetable for their fulfillment), at the expense of all other considerations, that leads to unhappiness. This is particularly the case when the object of desire is another person; no matter how strong one’s desire, there is no guarantee that it will be reciprocated, and it can’t be forced. We tend to attach too much value to the “love relationship”, as though the other relationships in our life are of lesser value or don’t matter. This in turn creates an excessive burden of expectation, so when a love relationship changes, evolves, or ends we feel a corresponding sense of failure.

But…that feeling of being in love…it seems so real. Our senses are heightened, our perception changes, the whole world seems different. The idea of being “in love with almost everyone” seems absolutely abhorrent when you are in love with the one. You want to be with that person only. No one else seems to matter, or at least not as much. As to why you love that person and not someone else…how to explain that?

From a scientific standpoint, we can look to biology and chemistry. Life must reproduce itself to continue; it’s the biological imperative. Studies have shown that people are drawn to each other by such factors as smell. But this seems problematic as well. From the sublimity of Buddhahood we plunge into the lower world of animality. Do we really, really want to be controlled by our biology, at the utter mercy of our senses? Surely there’s more to it than that. And what if we’re drawn to people who seem completely wrong for us; should we assume that nature knows best, and go with it?

This is where choice comes in. It just might be karma that has brought this person into your life. It may be that you are meant to have some kind of relationship with him/her, but it may have nothing to do with what we think of as “love”. Or…maybe it does. You decide to enter into a “relationship”. You don’t know if it’s meant to last a lifetime or not. This is what the two of you will have to determine. If left to chance, you may outgrow each other. At times you may feel indifferent; at times you may hate each other. You may feel anything but “love”. The physical attraction usually fades over time; if that was the sole basis for your coming together, and you have never carried the relationship further, you will invariably move away from each other. It’s not that the feelings you had weren’t real, it’s just that they didn’t last.

So. What’s the best way to be a Buddha, yet enjoy all that love has to offer? We are not meant to live on such an exalted plane that we don’t get to experience the pleasure of our senses. It is not necessary to eliminate our earthly desires to attain enlightenment; the two are inseparable. This is what we have to remember when “love” makes us suffer. In a sense, if what we most desire is to maintain a solid relationship, we could “be in love with almost everyone”-as long as we remember that. Shared values, respect for yourselves and for each other, and a shared determination to make it work are what keeps a relationship going long past what might have been its “sell by” date. It’s important to remember that no matter how much you may love someone and feel happy in that person’s presence, ultimately you alone are responsible for your happiness. Love may “make the world go ‘round” (yet another song), but our Buddha attributes of boundless wisdom, compassion, and courage are what enables us to keep it alive.

I am a Buddha. So are you, whether or not you are a Buddhist, have any knowledge of or belief in Buddhism, practice another religion entirely, or have no religious beliefs at all. At least, you have the potential to be a Buddha. Briefly, a “Buddha” is a human being who is enlightened to the eternal and ultimate truth that is the reality of all things, and who leads others to attain the same enlightenment.

Most Americans, when they hear of Buddha or Buddhism, think of the Dalai Lama or Zen. Or they may have read Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. Or they may think of the various statues (the skinny Buddha with peaceful expression, or the fat happy Buddha of the restaurants). Or they may relate it to the concept of karma, usually understood as “what goes around comes around”, although there’s a lot more to it than that. The Buddhism that I practice is that of Nichiren Daishonin, who based his teaching on Shakyamuni’s Lotus Sutra. (Shakyamuni lived approximately 2500 years ago, and is considered the ‘historical’ Buddha from whom subsequent teachings flowed; he was not and is not the “only” Buddha.) Nichiren regarded this sutra as Shakyamuni’s most profound teaching, as it recognizes the potential of every person to become a Buddha. Not only can every person become a Buddha, it can happen in this lifetime and in one’s present form. This revolutionary concept is found nowhere else in Shakyamuni’s teachings; earlier sutras had excluded (for example) evil people, those who were excessively devoted to learning, those who reviled and slandered the sutra, and…oh yes, women.

Small wonder that I practice this form of Buddhism! I belong to a world peace organization, the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), of which you can learn more about here: www.sgi-usa.org. (You can also learn more about Nichiren Buddhism.) The SGI is the largest lay organization practicing in the world practicing a religion without being connected to any clergy. We have no temples or priests. We have no hierarchal distinctions amongst members. No one is more “connected” than anyone else. I’ll refrain from going into the whole history of how this came about, but henceforth any references to Buddhism or the Buddhist point of view should be understood to mean the Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism and no other. I have opinions about everything, but my opinion won’t necessarily be your opinion, and that’s not a problem. Everything I write about, be it art, music, politics, or life in general, will be from a Buddhist perspective.  I am not an official spokesperson for the SGI, nor am I a Buddhist scholar; I am simply a practitioner of Buddhism, and I strive to see my life and the world through the eyes of a Buddha. Because being a Buddhist is not about removing oneself from society, or ridding oneself of desires, or spending one’s life performing austere practices. Being a Buddhist is about revealing one’s best self, experiencing life to the absolute fullest with fully opened eyes, and helping others do the same. There’s room under the Buddha umbrella for us all!

No statues, though.