a buddhist perspective

We don't wake up in the morning and say to ourselves, “Today, I'm going to be selfish and inconsiderate. I’m going to ignore the feelings of others.” We don't consciously make the decision to do this. And yet throughout the day, we act selfishly in so many ways.

We don’t write that letter to a friend, even though we know he is looking forward to hearing from us. We again postpone that trip to the library to return that best-seller that we took out, even though we know someone is probably waiting to read it. We go shopping with one friend forgetting that we had already told another we’d go with her.

Neither do we wake up and say “Today is the day I'm going to make someone suffer.” And yet that’s what we do—cause pain.

We don't turn the heat down because we'd be uncomfortable if our home was colder.  So we contribute to global warming and people in Bangladesh who never used a light bulb are told their land is being eroded due to planetary warming from carbon emissions. We don’t visit our friend in the nursing home because we’re busy, and so they are alone and feel forgotten.

We get trapped by our habits, our personal inertia, and our wish for comfort.

We don’t mean to be selfish or unkind. But too often, we are.

I've written about happiness several times; about how less is more and life is like a soap opera, and when people have asked what attachments are.

Happiness is an inner state. An inner state cannot be brought about by external circumstances. An inner state arises from our mind. From our perceptions and thoughts. From the conclusions we draw and the things we tell ourselves. So happiness does not come from more things or experiences. And it certainly does not come from believing the advertising we are assailed with everywhere we look.

The Buddha warned us about the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance. Our greed can destroy our practice. And as we are now beginning to realize, greed can destroy our world. It can do this in many ways. We desire power, we crave revenge, we yearn for love—the list is endless. But the bottom line is: “I want.” And the unspoken thought following this declaration is…and I’m just not going to think about the consequences.

Today I read Use less or use better?. The entry, the excerpt below from a New Yorker article, and the comments were equally good. 

"I asked [Amory] Lovins how his plan to save the world through energy efficiency could accommodate the open-ended nature of human desire. If, as he claims, conservation is profitable, what was to stop the profits from going straight toward more consumption?

"It doesn't automatically prevent that," he said. But, he added, "you might plow the money back into more efficiency rather than more powerboats and helicopter skiing. After all, you don't rewash your clean clothes in the cheaper-to-run washing machine, because your clothes are already clean. At some point, I think you get jaded by continuous trips to Bali.

"Your neighbors might point out that what you're doing is increasingly antisocial," he continued. "On a moral or spiritual level, at some point you may discover you're not all that happy having more stuff or more travel. Trying to meet non-material needs by material means is stupid and futile. Every faith tradition that I know decries materialism.

"Markets are meant to be greedy, not fair. Efficient, not sufficient. They're very good at short-term allocation of scarce resources, but that's all they're good at. They were never meant to tell you how much is enough or how to fulfill the higher purpose of a human being."

We need to figure out where happiness comes from, what our preoccupation with self-gratification is doing to our world and the less fortunate beings we share it with, and how we are going to change.

And as we know from our practice of Buddhism, change starts with ourself.

* "Mr. Green: Environmentalism's Most Optimistic Guru," January, 2007 New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert with Amory Lovins

Time has no beginning;
it has no end.
Throughout immeasurable eons,
violence and conflict have abounded,
and body and spirit deeply wounded.
May the time for healing begin now.

Immersed in anger,
polluted by selfishness.
As though ensnared,
humanity has been beset by ignorance.
But wisdom and compassion lie buried within.
May serenity and insight arise now.

We are not separate:
we are one.
Seeming differences are inconsequential
for our hearts are the same.
Respect and harmony are waiting to awaken.

May universal peace begin now.

The Buddha was an awakened person who saw the true nature. The Buddha’s viewpoints and behavior flowed from the innate virtues of nature. When we attain Buddhahood, that is, we see our true nature; our viewpoints and behavior will be exactly the same as the Buddha, because Buddhas see the same reality.

Our viewpoints, speech, and behavior all flow from our true nature when we see our true nature. Otherwise, they flow from our afflictions and residual habits.

Our viewpoints, speech, and behavior are still selfish and dictated by our greed, anger, and ignorance. There is no selfishness or greed, anger, and ignorance in Buddhas’ and Dharma-body Mahasattvas’ viewpoints, speech, and behavior. We should ask ourselves if we are still selfish, or if we still have greed, anger, ignorance, and arrogance. If we still like this or dislike that, we still have an ego that likes and dislike.

When we have an ego, then we still have selfishness. Even if there is only a trace of any of those in us, we are not yet awakened. We still have not seen true nature.

One who has seen true nature is completely free of selfishness, greed, anger, ignorance, and arrogance.

~ Based on Ven. Master Chin Kung's 2003 lecture series on the Amitabha Sutra

 

Question: I have difficulty telling wandering thoughts from proper thoughts. How do I differentiate between them?

Response: Wandering thoughts are selfish thoughts of benefiting oneself. Proper thoughts are thoughts of solely benefiting others. To determine which we are having, we need to examine our intentions. Am I doing something just to help another or is there some bit of selfishness involved. It takes mindfulness and honest examination to root out our true intention, and lots of practice.

It’s like slowly peeling away the layers of an onion. With each layer we think “Is this my true intention or is there something more underneath.”