RELIGION or POLITICS - Why Buddhism????? (Cont'd)

Hi y'all, it's a wonderful sunday even though here in the west coast of Florida it is raining, off and on, but our glorious sun will appear soon.


Now, I am on the subject of life and how to win. My last blog's final paragraph was "Society is complex and harsh, demanding that you struggle hard to survive. No one can make you happy. Everything depends of YOU as to whether or not you attain happiness... A human being is destined to a life of great suffering if he is weak and vulnerable to his external surroundings."

TO GO ON:    Of course, this is not to deny the gravity and scale of some of the problems facing mankind today. Starvation in the Third World, wars within and between states, the excalating pace of the destruction of the natural environment - these are not going to disappear over night simply because people start to think about them in a different way. Always, is the real physical suffering of someone with a  painful illness of course, but even of the nature our problem relates directly to our own strength; when we are weak, our problems seem large, even insuperable; when we are strong, they appear small.

The real question then, is how to make ourselves stronger. The answer tha Nichiren's Buddhism gives is that, when we chant our problems, we can use the very sufferings we are trying to overcome to help us grow. This may sound strange but from the viewpoint of this Buddhism, sufferings - whether personal, social, or those facing mankind as a whole - are not just inevitable; they are essential.

In other words, problems are the very means by which people can develop their full potential as human beings. As Nichiren Daishonin says, "Only by defeating a powerful enemy can one prove his real strength".

To put it simply, the highest teachings of Buddhism show how the desire to overcome suffering can be one of the greatest incentives for progress.

For instance, the development of medical science is perhaps the most obvious example of this, but one can also point to the principle at work in the development of whole countries, the suffering caused by periodic famines in India, for example, forced the nation's agronomists to tackle the basic problems of food pro-duction; they have solved this to the extent that India is now not only self-sufficent in food but also a net exporter.  

When it comes to personal suffering the principle works in a more particularized way, one which responds to the individual's unique circumstances. And the principle works, just as certain as the, Universal Law of Cause and Effect, and Karma. They are absolute, and because people ignore these principles, is why the sufferings.

For a moment briefly, as to karma, it teaches that the effects we experience in the present are the inevitable results of causes we have made in the past, either in this lifetime or over many previous life-times.


I leave you for now, and will expound on the subject matter in my next blogs.

Meantime, I offer a quote by Jimi Hendrix...... "When the Power of Love overcomes the Love of Power, the world will know Peace".

Cheers.         CJ