With Understanding, New Hope

If you are the regular reader of my posts, then you might have noticed about Nichiren Buddhism from Japan in my previous posts. So yesterday in the study meeting of Nichiren Buddhism, members were discussing how Governments ask first-responders like firefighters to take care of their own protection first before responding to save the lives of others. And, the discussion carried on and reach a point where a member working for the Switzerland railways shared how rail police treat the suicide cases. And, it made me think that Switzerland is considered heaven on earth, the governmental policies are so public-friendly, the unemployment rate is so low, such a beautiful, clean and green country. How a person can think of taking his/her life??? And, with such a small curiosity, I further explored the idea and came to know Switzerland is not alone, suicide is such a big problem on the global scale.

Depression is considered one of the primary reason for suicide, it takes people to the point that they think it is normal to play with their lives. That is the reason that unthinkable games like 'Blue Whale' are thriving, such games are the latest trend on Facebook and Twitter and making the headlines on major national-international newspapers. People not only play games like Blue Whale but also take it so seriously that they don't even hesitate to commit suicide. It really makes me concerned that where are we heading towards. Have we totally lost our mind???

Human Life has been considered the most precious in many Spiritual and religious texts. Human is considered the most intelligent, but now I wonder, really.....In the wave of a scientific renaissance in the 18-19th century followed with the industrial and technological revolution, people were in the impression that they are creating happiness and progress. But as time has progressed, its negative effects are being revealed. We have progressed for sure and are in the impression that conquered the time but at what cost. People have become so mechanical that emotions have taken the back seat or I may say that emotions are at the verge of extinction. That I can not assume for sure, emotions are there, but they are being negatively manifested. That is the reason so many threats and wars are happening around us. 

Buddhism is considered the religion of peace and meditation. Two important aspects of  Nichiren Buddhism are wisdom and compassion, which are based on the three pillars of faith, practice, and study. The present societal situations make me redetermine to practice this Buddhism with gratitude towards others as well as compassion. People feel left out, unwanted, emotionally and spiritually empty, sometimes religiously misguided in this fast-paced society, they feel like being treated as machine with no emotions. This lack of compassion for our fellow members, family, friends and surroundings, most importantly for ourselves has led us to the verge that so many suicides are happening. Latest statistics by the World Health Organisation and other surveys suggest that many people die because of suicide than war and accidents.   

This is an alarming time to reflect and think consciously and reconsider the soft qualities like compassion, emotions. I seriously wonder that so many scientist and technologists are focusing their efforts and time to bring emotions in the robots, this is the irony of our times.

Do leave a comment on what emotions run through you while reading this article...

Ten Worlds of Nichiren Buddhism

Buddhism says we are ordinary ignorant people with a very limited vision. That is why we need direction of wise teachers and wisdom from world philosophies to keep our lives on track. One such Buddhist concept is of ten worlds. It says there exists ten worlds in every single moment and it depends on our life state to which world will dominate that particular moment. Before elaborating more on this, I state these ten worlds: Hell, Hunger, Animality, Anger, Humanity, Heavon, Learning, Realization,Bodhisattva and Buddhahood.

With time, I have realized this concept very relevant and meaningful. I will not discuss all these worlds here as they all kind of self-explanatory.And, I am not a spiritual leader or Buddhist monk to give a discourse on these concepts.

I am here to acknowledge and share the concepts which I have learned ,found meaningful and beneficial. Buddhism also believes in sharing. Sharing the problems and benefits as well. I am here to share the philosophies which had comforted me at times and throw light and hope in the darkness of my problems.

I am a keen learner. I learned many things, but there was a void. I knew there was something missing, as there was no contentment despite so much learning. After encountering Buddhism and this concept of ten worlds and going through the sequence of these worlds, one thing stuck my attention. It was the sequential order of learning and realization. I have learnt the things, but realization was missing. I read the book, but experience was missing. Realization always follows the learning. After realizing the importance of Realization and reflecting back on my life experiences, I was kind of able to put together all the pieces and can see for myself where is what missing. It took time to learn this life lesson but believe me it was worth.

Briefly, ten worlds say that we have all the good or bad expressions within ourselves. Like something wrong happens and we may react aggressively and blaming the people and surrounding and what not. But another way to see at it is like this, instead of blaming others , we may pause and think for a moment how it could be done right and be hopeful to resolve the issue. Both the approaches or expressions are very common and exist within ourselves.But at different times, we react differently. Sometime with despair and another times with hope and happiness. And our reaction depends on our life state. If we have high life state that is of humanity and higher, we react more positively. That is why in Buddhism we always chant and pray and motivate for higher life states. Again, both positivity and negativity are vicious cyles. Positivity  attracts positivity and negativity attracts negativity. So, always keep your spirits uplifted,

Environment Support

Since past few years, I have been introduced to the Buddhism. The very first thing that appealed to me in Buddhism was the concept of environmental support. Being ordinary persons, we have very limited vision and understanding. There are many thing which exists around us and still we are so ignorant of them. There is a concept in Buddhism that we can neither see our own eyes nor the distant stars. This is something which makes absolute sense to me. So, is the concept of Environment support. I can relate it to many experiences of my own life. Like, few months ago, I traveled from Canada to India. It was a very pleasant journey. At my final destination, I come to know that one of my luggage did not arrive. I filed the complaint and was assured that in a day or two, I will get my luggage back. As I know this is very common in long distance flights and was very hopeful to get back my luggage soon.And, to my surprise, it has been almost 4 months, I have not received my luggage. Though, I followed up with the officers and called many times,but of no use. I had an expensive ticket with good air carrier. I checked in my luggage properly. I did all the right things, still my luggage got missing and no body is taking its responsibility. Now, to whom do I blame for this???I believe, it is just that I lacked environment support.
Another great example, I was travelling from Canada to USA on visa. My flight was comfortable and safe. All went well. And after two years, I was planning my trip to Switzerland from Canada and applying for visa and preparing all the other documents. At that time, the kind of documents I had for Canada immigration allows me to go and visit any country, but I will need one more document to reenter Canada. This was kind of surprise or confusing to me. Because, when I visited USA two years back, I had the same status in Canada, but I had no problem to reenter Canada. After researching for few days and consulting some travel agents, I come to know that Canada and USA has some ties that allowed me to enter Canada without requiring any other document, but this is not the case with Switzerland. I really thanked my environment at that time for all the support it provided me two years back at the Canada airport, which I realized two years later.
In many philosophies, prayer is considered an important pillar of ones faith. And, Buddhism is no exception. The difference is that pray for right things and supportive environment is equally important. I just quoted very simple examples from the diary of my own life. I do not need to elaborate more on this as we can see many examples from a newspaper of todays time. To be at right place, at right time with right people is all I believe is the concept of environment support and I always pray for it. 

Fundamental Darkness

My roots belong to India. India has inheritance of great sages, spiritual and intellectual leaders. One of the great spiritual leader of all time is Buddha. He appeared on this earth centuries ago. He is the one which is enlightened, that is why he is called Buddha. Many of you might know, Buddha is not the name of a person, but it is a status which means "enlightened one". He got enlightened and is believed to be liberated. Different schools of Buddhism have different beliefs. I have not studied all the schools, so I can not comment on that. However, I know one concept of Buddhism which really appeals to me and makes great sense to me and everybody. This Buddhist concept is called the Fundamental darkness. Fundamental darkness is the darkness within ourselves that exists in you and I and everyone. This was the core reason Buddha set off his journey of enlightenment and liberation. Upon his enlightenment, he charted the path for all of us, so we all can benefit. He was a noble soul and believed in the welfare of all. Buddha said good and evil both exist within us. And it is constant fight between this good and evil existing in every moment. When we are not aware of this fundamental darkness inherit within ourselves, we start exploring outside and giving blame to outside factors if something goes wrong. I do strongly believe some sort of force within myself which strongly pulls me to do the things which are easy to do rather the work which is supposed to be done. Hey, I am a perfectly normal, healthy , intellectual person. When you are surrounded with people and things, we are distracted. But, when we are alone, then our internal system, our thoughts start playing their role and then emerges the challenge to deal with this fundamental darkness.
One school of Buddhism, Nichiren Buddhism, believes that one tool to win this battle over fundamental darkness is chanting "Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo". This is a Japanese phrase meaning I devote myself to the mystic law of lotus sutra. You might have heard this chanting before. This is a very profound philosophy and when pondered on its concepts with an open mind really gives wisdom and insight into our problems. Once you start exploring this philosophy, as an intellectual person, it seems repetitive and redundant.It is not uncommon. I can say from my experience, as I felt the same once I first encountered this philosophy. It takes time to convince oneself and a passionate teacher. And you will not believe fundamental darkness itself is a vicious cycle. Even not having faith in this Buddhist philosophy or any other life philosophy which affirms hope and light, is also our fundamental darkness. This darkness is so profound these days that life gurus , corporate trainers and what not are cropping up everywhere. See, this is a simple economical concept, there is demand, that is why supply.
Nam myo ho renge kyo is a tool which starts questioning to us whether we are taking full responsibility of our life. It asks you to look within and release that good vibes of wisdom, compassion and courage. And, there is so much darkness within ourselves, so much clutter, so much influences of this and that, we need a light, we need a spark which can guide our path through this journey to win over ourselves. Nichiren Buddhism believes in this chanting of nam myo ho renge kyo to cross the bridge of any difficulty. Many people say that simply chanting nam myo ho renge kyo will solve all my miseries. I say never, this is impossible. How it works is like this, it enables you from within , it gives you the direction and vision to overcome your miseries. When this attitudinal shift happens then things automatically starts moving in that direction.If it is something that connects with you and simply you would like to know more about this, just drop a comment.