The Angel in the Rock

This talk on Faith from a Buddhist perspective was given at the London Buddhist Centre Open Retreat in 1994

Some people ask questions such as, “What do Buddhists believe in?”, “Do you believe in God?” or “What do you have to believe in to be a Buddhist?” or “You believe in Karma and rebirth, don’t you?” These are fairly common questions, they may even be questions for some of you here so I will touch on them during the course of this talk. But before that I want to say something about what Faith is from a Buddhist perspective and indeed what it is not. Then I will talk about what Buddhists have Faith in, touching on the questions mentioned. I will also say something about the necessity of Faith and about what you have to believe in to be a Buddhist and I will finish off by talking about how to cultivate or develop Faith.

First of all, what is Faith? When I was growing up in Ireland in the 1960's I was given a thorough indoctrination in Catholicism. Sometimes Catholicism is referred to simply as ‘The Faith’ and indeed Faith played a big part in the Catholicism that I was immersed in (almost drowned in I might say). Whenever there was a particularly tricky bit of doctrine that could not be explained it was called a Mystery, the teacher would say, “That’s a mystery, you just have to believe it”. So in this instance Faith was a substitute for knowledge; where knowledge failed, Faith stepped in. This is not what Faith is in Buddhism.

There are three elements to Faith according to Buddhism – in fact three stages. These are intuition, reason and experience. Faith based on intuition has to be tested by Faith based on reason and Faith based on reason has to be tested by Faith based on experience. So that a full rounded Faith is in the end based on experience, which is where true knowledge resides. True knowledge is also based on experience not merely on having an intellectual grasp of something. Imagine you are in a strange city, you want to get to somewhere but you do not know the way. Your intuition tells you to ask a particular person and after speaking to them your reason confirms what your intuition had surmised i.e. that they were familiar with the city and after following their directions your experience of arriving at the correct destination confirms what your intuition and your reason told you.

The first level of Faith in Buddhism is based on intuition. At this stage there is a response in us to something which embodies meaning and the possibility of fulfilment and perfection. At this level our Faith may be confused and unfocused. We are looking for something but we do not know what it is that we are looking for. We have our experience of dissatisfaction perhaps and an intuition, a feeling, that there is something better, that there is more to life and we start searching, we start looking. It is this kind of intuitive faith that gets us to attend retreats and to start meditating.

I remember about eighteen years ago, (I was twenty-one at the time) I was working in London as an accountant and I just could not believe that this was what life was about. My imagination was not satisfied with a projected future of house and car and family and golf and happiness measured in money and material success. No, I just was not satisfied with that. There had to be more to life; my intuition told me there was and my imagination gave me clues as to what it might be. Intuition and imagination are closely allied. You are looking for something and you do not know what it is you are looking for but your imagination has some inkling.

There is a story about Michelangelo. Apparently he was just outside the city walls working on a sculpture, chipping away at a huge rock, and a small boy came and sat down nearby watching and eventually the boy piped up and asked a question. Children sometimes ask very good questions. Children can possess that freshness of approach which is known as ‘beginner’s mind’. So this little boy asked a very obvious question, but I think nevertheless, a profoundly important one. He said, “Mister, Signor, why are you hitting that big rock?”. Not, “What does it mean?”, or, “How do you do it?”, but “Why are you hitting that rock?” Just as an aside, I was thinking that this is a very good question, a fundamental question, it seems to go right to the heart of the matter. Perhaps in the realm of the arts this is the best sort of question: not, “What does your painting or sculpture mean?”, or, “How do you do it?”, but, “Why? Why are you putting paint on canvas, why are you hitting that rock?” So Michelangelo, in the story anyway, took this question very seriously and gave a serious answer, he gave a very poetic answer, which just like the simple question of the little boy, goes to the heart of the matter. Michelangelo replied, “To set an angel free”.

Our imagination supplies the angels that our reason and experience cannot as yet grasp. Many people have within them a vague imagining of what life could be, even what life should be. Some people dismiss this seed of the spiritual life as nonsense, as fantasy, and proceed to live according to what passes for reality. For others their imagining of a better world takes them into politics, into social work, into the caring professions, into environmental campaigning or even into all of these, and then for some it leads to the arts and for a few it leads to the spiritual life.

Many people when they come across Buddhism or come across the Triratna Buddhist Order experience a feeling of coming home. That is how people often describe it, coming home. It is as if at last they have found something quite concrete that corresponds to what they had imagined. This was my own experience. First in West Berlin when I encountered Buddhism finally, in the form of a practising Buddhist, a Sri Lankan monk; I was uplifted by the experience, here was a whole universe of possibility opening up for me and I was over-joyed and eager to get started. Then a year later in London I came across the Triratna Buddhist Community in a book called, Buddhism for Today and immediately I had this feeling of coming home. Thoughts and imaginings that I had had and had even tried to put into effect were being practised by people right there in London. I had found the ‘jewel in the dung heap’, as one Buddhist parable puts it, and somehow intuitively I knew this was it, this was what I was looking for. The clearer I became about Buddhism, the clearer I could see what the Triratna Buddhist Community was aiming at. The clearer I became the more my intelligence, my reason was able to confirm what my intuition had glimpsed.

The first level of Faith is the level of intuition and imagination when as Sangharakshita puts it, “What is ultimate in us responds to what is ultimate in the universe”. (Sangharakshita, Complete Works, Vol.3, p.263) The dull grey rock of the everyday world begins to yield up angels to the inner vision of our heart.

The next level of Faith then is the level of intelligence or reason. The first thing to be noted here is that whether in religion or in life generally you have to take some things on trust. It is a condition of life that we have to take some things on trust. In order to get here tonight you may have had to take on trust that the trains would run. You could not be absolutely sure, strikes happen, breakdowns happen, accidents happen, but you set out anyway, trusting that you would get a train. If you did not have some trust in this way you would not be able to do anything. If you insisted on having a one hundred percent guarantee that the train would run, there would be no breakdowns, no accidents, well you would have to stay at home. The point here is that if we have an over sceptical attitude, if we want reasons for everything and want certainty before we act, then we are likely to remain inactive. At this level of Faith, the level of reason and intelligence, you can gather evidence, observe, think things through, ask questions and satisfy yourself that your beliefs are sensible, but until you have experience you cannot be absolutely sure. For instance I might say to you “if you act generously, you will be happier and you will grow spiritually”. If you were very cynical you might think,” he is after my money”, and not listen any further or think about it any more. On the other hand you might have quite a receptive attitude and ask “why is that the case?” “Why would generosity make me happier?” “What do you mean by generosity anyway?” and, “What is the connection between generosity and spiritual growth?” You might ask all these questions and ponder the answers and come to the conclusion that it was perhaps worth a try anyway, or if you knew me and knew something of my life you might think, “well, maybe I can trust what he says.” We need to ask questions, we need to seek clarification, but we need to realise that we cannot have complete intellectual certainty before we act. Something has to be taken on trust. It is said that one way to recognise genuine spiritual teachers is that they will always encourage you to ask questions, to seek clarification and to verify things for yourself. Whereas non-genuine teachers will make claims for themselves and expect you to accept what they say just because they say it.

It is a distinct and distinguishing feature of Buddhism that there is nothing worth knowing that you cannot verify in your own experience. If it is worth knowing you can verify it in your own experience. It may take time and effort but it is possible. There is no mystery that has to be covered by a blanket of blind faith. In Buddhism it is legitimate and essential to look for a congruency between what people teach and how they live their lives. You can expect ethical behaviour from those who teach the benefits of ethics, you can expect people to practise what they preach or “to walk the talk”. This means of course that if some guru or other tries to explain away lapses into unethical behaviour as being a means of testing the faith of his disciples, it should be taken with a very large pinch of salt indeed. I am not saying, by the way, that a spiritual teacher would never do anything wrong, what I am saying is that a genuine teacher would acknowledge it as such rather than try to polish it up to look like an esoteric teaching.

At the level of reason you try to find clarity and make sense of what you intuited, but you do not expect to have a one hundred percent certainty before acting. To be really certain you have to practise, you have to gain your own experience. Buddhism is quite pragmatic. You practise and then you can see for yourself the results. But the main thing is you have to practise. You have to act. The theme is try it and see for yourself. When you try meditation for instance you will have some experience to base your faith on. If you had been meditating regularly for a year say, then you could very confidently say what the benefits were and you could extrapolate from that what the benefits of carrying on for another year would be or ten years or twenty years.

These then are the elements of Faith in Buddhism; Intuition, Intelligence, and Experience. A reliance on blind belief is not only not required, but is considered harmful. A reliance on blind belief is an abdication of personal responsibility and according to Buddhism you are responsible for your own life and your own mind.

Having said a bit about what Faith is in Buddhism, let us now look at the objects of Faith. What do Buddhists have faith in, what do Buddhists believe in? The simple answer is Buddhists believe in the Buddha, Buddhists have faith in the Buddha. So what does this mean? For Buddhists the Buddha represents the greatest, the highest, human ideal, the Ideal of Human Enlightenment, the Ideal of Human Perfection. The Buddha represents the pinnacle, the peak, of human achievement, the perfection of Wisdom and Compassion.

The ultimate meaning of existence is embodied in the Buddha and this is what all humanity is capable of, this is what all men and women are capable of. All men and women are capable of gaining Enlightenment, of gaining Insight into the nature of existence. All men and women are capable of attaining to the pinnacle of Wisdom and Compassion. This means you and I. You and I are capable of attaining this ideal, perfected state of boundless Wisdom and Compassion, this state of constant creativity and unceasing altruistic activity.

Faith in the Buddha means faith in yourself too. Faith that you as a human being can grow and develop beyond anything we may even be able to imagine at this stage. So this faith in the Buddha, as actually Enlightened and yourself as potentially Enlightened is the first thing that Buddhists believe in. Following on from this is belief in the practices which create the conditions for the unenlightened to become Enlightened. These are ethics, meditation and reflection.

If we lead an ethical life we will have a clear conscience and a clear conscience is a basic condition for making progress in meditation. According to Buddhism ethics are a description of the intelligent way to behave. Buddhism speaks of skilful and unskilful actions rather than in terms of right and wrong. To be ethical then is to be skilful, to be intelligent.

There are five ethical principles, five modes of skilful behaviour. Each one is formulated negatively, in terms of what one refrains from doing and positively in terms of what one does. They are principles as I said, not rules. They are sometimes referred to as training principles. This is how you train yourself to become a better person, this is how you would spontaneously behave if you were Enlightened.

The training principles are:

I undertake to refrain from harming living beings.

The positive counterpart of this is deeds of loving kindness.

Secondly, I undertake to refrain from taking the not given.

The positive counterpart is open-handed generosity.

Thirdly, I undertake to refrain from sexual misconduct.

The positive counterpart is stillness, simplicity and contentment.

Then fourthly, I undertake to refrain from false speech.

The positive counterpart is truthful communication.

The fifth and last is I undertake to refrain from taking intoxicants that cloud the mind.

The positive counterpart of that is mindfulness clear and radiant.

These are the five training principles that form the basis of Buddhist ethics and by endeavouring to train ourselves to behave skilfully in line with these we will be helping ourselves to grow and develop, helping ourselves to turn our faith in the Buddha and in our own potential into an experience of spiritual change. It is worth noting in particular that each precept is preceded by “I undertake”. It is not, “Thou shalt not”, it is, “I undertake”. As I said before we are responsible for our own lives.

Faith in our potential and wanting to change leads us to skilful action and to meditation. Through meditation, we can by degrees integrate our energies so that more of us is moving in the same direction and we can develop Metta or loving kindness which is what underlies all the training principles. Our integrated and concentrated energies will create the conditions for Wisdom and our expansion into the realms of Metta will form the basis for Compassion. Wisdom and Compassion perfected to their highest is another way of describing Enlightenment.

As Buddhists we believe in the Buddha and by extension in our own potential Buddhahood and that by undertaking certain practices recommended by the Buddha we too can attain to Buddhahood. All the practices which conduce to the attainment of Buddhahood or Enlightenment are called the Dharma. So Buddhists have faith in the Buddha and the Dharma. And in answer to the question, “What do you have to believe to be Buddhist?” the answer is, “You have to believe that you can grow, that you can change”. That is it, that is what you have to believe to be a Buddhist. If you have got that as the foundation then you can start to see all the implications and embark on the practices at your own pace. But if you do not believe that you can grow and change and become a better person, then there is no point.

There were two other questions I mentioned at the beginning, “Do Buddhists believe in God?” and “Do Buddhists believe in Karma and Rebirth?”

Firstly, “Do Buddhists believe in God?” No! For Buddhists, Human Enlightenment is the highest Ideal and Enlightenment is a process, a process of constant creativity and increasing altruistic activity. The universe is a process, there is no first beginning that is perceivable. Belief in a Creator God who rewards the good and punishes the wicked is a hindrance to human growth and in Buddhism considered to be a state of spiritual ignorance. It is considered to be an abdication of personal responsibility and therefore quite likely to lead to unskilful behaviour, and indeed history has shown this to be the case. So, Buddhists do not believe in God, quite the contrary. According to Sangharakshita “It is best not to believe in God. If one does believe in him one should at least disobey him.”(Peace is a Fire, p.30)

“Do Buddhists believe in Karma and rebirth?” Well, a bit of explanation is necessary here before giving an answer. What is Karma? Karma means “action”. The term Karma is often misused to mean the fruits of action, but that is not correct, the fruits of actions are called Karma-vipaka. So Karma means action and Karma-vipaka means consequences of actions. Therefore the question “Do Buddhists believe in Karma?” is probably better phrased as “Do Buddhists believe that actions have consequences?” and the answer is yes. But more than that, Buddhists believe that skilful actions have beneficial consequences and unskilful actions have bad consequences.

Karma is an important theme in Buddhism. Because actions have consequences and because the consequences of action are not random but connected to the action, it is possible to make use of Karma or the law of Karma as it is sometimes called and by engaging in skilful actions, skilful Karma, you can be sure of creating beneficial consequences for yourself and others. Buddhists do believe in Karma, Buddhists do believe that actions have consequences and that it is possible to make use of this fact in order to grow and develop. Karma is a friend.

What about rebirth? Do Buddhists believe in rebirth? The traditional Buddhist view is that consciousness is a continuum. Consciousness is not extinguished at death but rather forms a new body for itself in accordance with its tendencies and actions. This continuum of consciousness is like a stream of volitional energy that constantly changes and modifies in accordance with each new act of body, speech and mind. There is no scientific evidence for rebirth. There is also no scientific evidence that consciousness ends with death. The Buddhist belief in rebirth or in a continuum of consciousness passing through many lives, is not based on scientific evidence. Ultimately this doctrine is based on the Buddha’s experience.

According to Buddhism one by-product of attaining higher states of consciousness is that one can remember previous lives and when the Buddha gained Enlightenment he saw all his previous lives. This is a bit similar to the notion that when someone is approaching death their whole life passes before them. On attaining Enlightenment lifetimes pass before us. As Subhuti says in The Buddhist Vision;

Limitless time and immeasurable space are the background to the Buddhist vision of human existence. Self-consciousness flows in a powerful stream of willing, building for itself bodies and worlds which most appropriately express its own nature. If it is unwholesome in character it forms lives of pain and frustration. If it is wholesome it climbs the ladder of the Higher Evolution. It may traverse the Path in the course of countless aeons, rising slowly, life by life, or it may, with exceptional gifts and prodigious effort, pass from self-consciousness to Transcendental consciousness in a single life. Those who call themselves Buddhists but who do not believe that they will be reborn will have to make sure that they gain enlightenment in this life!”(The Buddhist Vision, p.76)

We have looked at what Faith is from a Buddhist perspective and saw that it was based on Intuition, Intelligence and Experience. We saw that Buddhists believe in the Buddha, the Ideal of Human Enlightenment and in their own potential to grow and develop and ultimately to gain Enlightenment. We saw that what Buddhists have to believe in is that it is possible to grow and change. We saw that Buddhists believe that actions have consequences and that skilful actions have beneficial consequences and unskilful actions have bad consequences. This is the Law of Karma. We saw that Buddhists do not believe in God and in fact consider such belief to be an obstacle to spiritual growth. Finally we saw that the Buddhist perspective takes in many lifetimes, as the stream of volitional energy that is consciousness continually manifests in pursuit of its tendencies.

Faith is an openness to something outside our present experience. Without faith in new possibilities and greater potential, we are stuck. So Faith provides the energy, the emotional engagement for us to move on, to chip away at the stony shell of our pride and selfishness until we release the angel of our aspirations. Faith is an extremely emotionally-positive state. One Buddhist writer, Dr. Edward Conze put it this way;

“Faith is an attitude of serenity and lucidity. Its opposite here is worry, the state of being troubled by many things. It is said that someone that has faith loses the ‘five terrors’, i.e. he ceases to worry about the necessities of life, about loss of reputation, death, unhappy rebirth and the impression he may make on an audience.” (E. Conze, The Way of Wisdom, Wheel Publication 65/66,1980, p.3)

So you see I am testing my faith by standing up here talking to you! Faith is a state of positive emotion because with faith you are no longer overly concerned with yourself, you are imbued with the Ideal, you are not dependent on others for approval because you have faith in the potential of yourself and all humanity to attain to the Ideal of Perfection.

We live these days in a world that places very high value on the rational and a world that often confuses cynicism with intelligence. Faith has come to be identified as irrational and therefore suspect. Belief in anything beyond the evidence of the senses can be cynically dismissed. This is a very one-sided and stultifying attitude. An atmosphere of cynicism makes growth impossible and fosters distrust, selfishness and isolation.

Faith is an openness to new experience, an openness to possibilities and potentials beyond what we already know. Faith fosters an attitude of expansiveness, trust and generosity and creates an atmosphere in which growth is encouraged. Cynicism inhibits our potential. Faith gives us potency, it empowers us to act, to step out of the known and to taste the freedom of the unknown. Faith gives more credence to the great unexplored world of our imagination and refuses to be confined by the limitations of our reasoning.

It has been said that, “Faith is innate and Doubt is acquired”.(Peace is a Fire, p.85) In other words, the urge to grow, to expand is an innate tendency of all life, it is life. Although it is innate, it has to be nurtured. Positive emotion has to be nurtured and cultivated. There are specific practices for encouraging positive emotion. There is the Metta Bhavana meditation, there are Communication Exercises and there is Ritual.

The main ritual we perform in Triratna is the Sevenfold Puja. The Sevenfold Puja is a ritual in which we recite verse and chant mantras. The purpose of the Sevenfold Puja is to transform our intellectual understanding into an emotional experience. The seven verses express different moods ; they are seven stages outlining the journey from recognition of the existence of the Ideal in the first verse, to a wholehearted expression of our aspiration to be of service to all beings everywhere in the final verse. These devotional and aspirational verses together with the ritual of making offerings to the Ideal as symbolised by the shrine, and chanting mantras to invoke Compassion and energy, all help us to transform our emotions and to cultivate faith and openness to that which is outside our present experience. We say with open hearts, “May I become that which maintains all beings situated throughout space, so long as all have not attained to peace.” The puja is the poetry of devotion. Poetry reaches into the inner recesses of our hearts and bids us to look up and out and to start to embrace life without fear.

Here is something, from the American poet Walt Whitman, that expresses something of this;

“Each man and each woman of you I lead upon an knoll,

My left hand hooks you round the waist,

My right hand points to landscapes of continents and a plain public road.

Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,

You must travel it for yourself.

It is not far… it is within reach.

Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know,

Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.

Shoulder your duds, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth;

Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.

If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,

And in due time you shall repay the same service to me;

For after we start we never lie by again.” (Leaves of Grass, Penguin 1986, p.80)

Elsewhere he writes;

“Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune,

Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,

Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms

Strong and content, I travel the open road.” (Leaves of Grass, Bantam 1983, p.119)

For Walt Whitman the 'open road' turned out to be the American Civil War, which gave him the opportunity to give his love and compassion on a grand scale to the sick and wounded soldiers in the makeshift hospitals of Washington. He found an outlet for his expansive love and experienced the freedom of being able to give unstintingly.

Each of us will find our own open road where the meaning of our lives lies before us. Each of us can free the angel of Faith from the rock of our fears.

Creating Connections

This talk was given at the London Buddhist Centre, Sangha Day, Nov 1994

Sangha is about creating connections with other people who want to grow and develop through Buddhist practices – meditation, puja, communication, study, mindfulness, ethics.

Today we are celebrating Sangha. We are celebrating the existence, value, necessity and beauty of the Sangha, of all people who have attained insight into Reality – the Arya Sangha and we are celebrating the existence, value, necessity and beauty of all the people who are striving to change and grow through the practice of the Dharma – the Maha Sangha.

We are celebrating the Sangha which we go for refuge to – the Arya Sangha and we are celebrating the Sangha which we go for refuge with – the Maha Sangha.

The Arya Sangha is represented for us by the great Buddhist teachers – Marpa, Milarepa, Padmasambhava, Dogen, Hui Neng and so on and by the archetypal Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. This is the Sangha which is our refuge – this is the Sangha which guarantees the Dharma, which preserves the treasure. This is the Sangha we can rely on totally. These are the 'powerful protectors' whom we bow to in 'entreaty and supplication', asking for teachings to guide us and lighten the burden of our suffering. This is the Sangha we go for refuge to when we recite the formula Sangham Saranam Gacchami.

The Maha Sangha is the Sangha we go for refuge with. For us the Maha Sangha is the people we are in contact and communication with as we tread the Path of Ethics, Meditation, Mindfulness and so on. This is the Sangha that we need to connect with. We need to connect with each other. Out of our collective practice and communication we can create the ideal conditions for Insight to arise. In other words we can create the ideal conditions for the Arya Sangha to arise. By putting effort and energy into the creation of the Maha Sangha, we will also be helping to create the Arya Sangha.

What this means is friendship. By being friendly, in an ordinary way, we create the context and culture in which spiritual friendship kalyana mitrata) can arise and flourish. And spiritual friendship is Sangha. Our communication with one another is Sangha.

So, ideally, the way for us to create Sangha is to live together and to work together. That is the advice of the wise. That if we live together and work together as Buddhists, communicating and practising ethics, then we will create Sangha, we will build spiritual friendship. We will create the conditions for the manifestation of Insight, for the manifestation of the Sangha Refuge.

So the question to be considered is – does this work in practice? Is it the case that Buddhists living and working together creates spiritual friendship, create Sangha? Before this question could be answered we have to consider more fundamental issues such as – what is a Buddhist and what exactly is meant by living and working together?

So very briefly and very simply, a Buddhist is someone who is effectively Going for Refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. What does it mean to be effectively Going for Refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha?.

Again briefly – to Go for Refuge effectively means to be willing to take responsibility for ones life and ones mental states and to take all necessary steps to change in a positive direction – to take all necessary steps as advised by the Buddha and in our case by Bhante Sangharakshita, to change in the direction of greater skilfulness, greater compassion and greater wisdom. So if we want to be Buddhists we have to be willing to take responsibility for ourselves and for our mental states. All too often we feel or think if only that other person was different or if only circumstances were different – then we would be happy, or then we could have different mental states, then we could be more positive. This if only attitude is not taking responsibility. This is not effective going for refuge. This is ineffective, passive. This is being a victim and it is not the sort of attitude that will create Sangha. It is not helpful either to ourselves or others.

We need to actively take responsibility for ourselves. If I am unhappy or lonely or isolated or angry, then I must do something about it. If I say to myself that it is the fault of other people or the fault of circumstances, then I put myself in a position where I cannot act, I cannot change – I have to wait for others to change or try to change them. We have the ability, the power to change ourselves. We cannot change others – they must do that for themselves. So we need to actively take responsibility for our lives, for our mental states and we need to take whatever steps necessary to change, to grow away from the unskilful towards the skilful. If we do this we will be effectively Going for Refuge – we will be Buddhists. Of course, we also need to take responsibility for our positive states of mind and acknowledge them and bring awareness to how they arise.

Living and working together as Buddhists is the ideal method to create Sangha. So having looked briefly at what it means to be a Buddhist, let us now consider what this living and working together consists of.

Living together as Buddhists does not mean simply sharing a house for economic, ecological, political or social reasons. Living together as Buddhists in order to create Sangha, spiritual community, means first and foremost entering into communication with each other on the basis of our common ideal and helping each other to change and grow. Everything else is secondary, everything else is a means to that end.

In order to enter into deeper communication with each other we need two things. Firstly we need to access our depths through meditation and study – we need to have some depth of experience, of feeling, of thought, for there to be deeper communication. Secondly we need to spend time together. The more time we spend with someone the more likely we are to go beyond the superficialities of personality and enter into more real communication. So living together as Buddhists involves a deliberate, conscious practice of communication based on our ideals and facilitated by meditation, study and spending time together.

Working together as Buddhists again is not simply about turning up at the same workplace to get a job done. It is about using work as a spiritual practice to help us develop ethical sensitivity, to help us to take responsibility, to help us go beyond our limitations and to help us learn to co-operate. So working together as Buddhists can be one of the most intense spiritual practices we could engage in and consequently one of the most effective ways of bringing about change and growth in us.

The challenge of working with other people, trying to co-operate on a common project and at the same time maintain skilful mental states is very great. It is a constant challenge to go beyond limits of communication and limits of compassion, and move out into the unknown territory of trust and co-operation.

I worked for five years as part of Buddhist team running a health food store and found it to be a challenging, effective and invigorating spiritual practice. It was not easy, changing habits is not easy but the rewards are so tangible and so worthwhile that I always found it difficult to understand why everybody didn't want want to work in that way. It is the most powerful spiritual practice I know and brings about changes in people quite dramatically. I gained a great deal from my time there. I learned discipline which is absolutely necessary for spiritual progress. I learned confidence, friendship and work satisfaction. I had an outlet for my energy. I believe that working together as Buddhists can be one of the most intense and powerful spiritual practices available and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

I said earlier that the best way to create Sangha was for Buddhists to live and work together. And I've given a brief explanation of what it means to be a Buddhist and to live and work together as Buddhists. In practice of course we often fall short of effective Going for Refuge; we all have our lapses from skilfulness, our lapses from taking responsibility for ourselves, our lapses into superficiality and selfishness. Also in practice, for some people it is just not possible to live and work with other Buddhists due to circumstances. However, that is still the most ideal situation in which to change. Those are the most ideal conditions for making our Going for Refuge more and more effective. Of course, having ideal conditions is just a starting point. Just as having a studio doesn't make an artist or having a pen doesn't make a writer. We have to make use of the opportunity.

But bearing in mind our limitations, our fears, our circumstances, it may be that for many of us we need to try to create Sangha and develop communication in less ideal conditions. There are some practical steps that all of us can undertake whether we live and work with other Buddhists and aspiring Buddhists or not.

I'm going to talk about four things in particular – two of which are concerned with ourselves and two of which are concerned with our relationship to others. These are..

• positive emotion
• taking responsibility
• spending time together
• generosity

Positive Emotion

It is absolutely vital that we develop positive emotion for our Dharma practice to be effective. An effective Dharma practice is one which changes us so that we move from being concerned primarily with ourselves, our needs, our suffering, to being equally concerned with others, with their needs, their suffering. This is not easy.

In a family or in a sexual relationship there are natural and biological ties that move us beyond our concern with ourselves alone – but in the context of the Sangha, the spiritual community, it is only human empathy that draws us out of complete selfishness.

In order to be able to respond to the needs of others we need to have a basis of positive emotion. We need to feel an abundance within us in order to be able to give willingly and freely. In a previous talk I quoted Bhante Sangharakshita as saying that in order to be able to effectively meet the needs of other people there is one need of our own which needs to be fulfilled and that is the need to appreciate our own worth and know that it is appreciated by others, to love ourselves and feel that we are loved by others. ( see Wisdom beyond Words, p.83) This is profoundly and fundamentally important. This is the wellspring of altruism, the source of generosity, the origin of the Bodhisattva Ideal. Until we fulfil this basic need – the need to appreciate our own worth, to love ourselves and know that we are loved by others – know that our worth is appreciated by others – until we get this established in our lives we will find it very difficult to be effective in our attempts to change, to Go for Refuge.

It is important that we don't ignore this. We need to take steps to develop this means of richness and abundance, this appreciation of our worth. We need to practice the Metta Bhavana consistently and imaginatively, we need to focus on what is good in our lives. One idea I came across in a book called “Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers which seems a good idea to me. She suggests keeping what she calls a book of Abundance. She says:

“Buy yourself a beautiful notebook, as expensive as you can afford. Start filling it by listing as many positive things in your life – past and present – as you can think of. Don’t stop until you reach 150. Some of you will find more. When you feel you can’t think of any more, you can. Just keep focusing on all the blessings in your life. No matter how small they seem, include them in your book. Each day make entries in your book. Instead of a traditional diary – which for many is comprised of doom and gloom, wish and want – create this book, which in effect simply states ‘I have!’ Note every positive thing, large or small, that happens – a compliment from a friend, a cheerful hello from the postman, a beautiful sky, a chance to contribute, a haircut, a new suit, nourishing food. Notice everything good that happens to you. Look for blessings, and you will notice them all over the place. They will envelop you. There is so much you are not seeing that is already there. There is no need to feel scarcity, when there is such abundance.”

The point here is focussing on what is good and positive in your life – focussing on what you have, appreciating what you have and from this grows the ability to give.

You can develop positive emotion through communication with your friends too – when you are out of touch with what is positive in your life, ask someone to remind you – ask someone to appreciate you, to rejoice in your merits. It might seem artificial but that doesn't matter, what matters is that it works.

Take Responsibility

The next thing I want to look at is taking responsibility for ourselves. This ties in with the attitude of appreciating our own worth. If we appreciate our own worth, we also appreciate our ability to take responsibility for ourselves. Not taking responsibility for ourselves means to go through life feeling like a victim and wallowing in self-pity, blaming other people, moaning and complaining, being passive and staying stuck in the mud of misery. So how can we take responsibility for ourselves?

Well first of all we can stop blaming others for what we feel, what we do and what we are. Just that, stop blaming others. They do not make us respond in a particular way. We have a choice. As Victor Frankl put it:

“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.”

And having spent time in a Nazi concentration camp, he knew what he was talking about.

Now for some people the immediate response to not blaming others would be to start blaming themselves. So a second step in taking responsibility for ourselves is to get rid of irrational guilt. It is part of being an ordinary human being to experience greed, hatred and delusion in some form or other. That's why we need to practice ethics and make efforts to transform ourselves. Irrational guilt or blaming ourselves for not being perfect is of absolutely no use to us. Getting rid of irrational guilt isn't easy. We need to become aware of its presence in our lives first; aware of how it manifests in our lives – we may need the help of others to discover this. And then having become aware of it we need to counteract it through developing positive emotion as mentioned previously or in particularly difficult cases by therapeutic blasphemy. As Sangharakshita says in his essay on Buddhism and Blasphemy, an essay exploring the blasphemy laws in the UK:

“ The individual has a right to blaspheme. He has a right to commit rational blasphemy because he has the right to freedom of speech, i.e. to the full and frank expression of his opinions, and he has a right to commit therapeutic blasphemy because he has the right to grow, i.e. to develop his human potential to the utttermost. One who was brought up under the oppressive and coercive influence of theological monarchism – and who as a result of that influence is tormented by irrational feelings of fear and guilt, has the right to rid himself of those feelings by openly expressing his resentment against the Power that bears the ultimate responsibility for their being instilled into him, i.e. by committing blasphemy. Christianity is not the only form of theological monarchism, of course. Judaism and Islam are also forms of theological monarchism and those who are brought up under their influence often suffer in the same way as those brought up under the influence of Christianity and have, therefore, the same right to blaspheme.” (The Priceless Jewel, p.111)

Perhaps there are other systems of thought – -isms and -ologies that we need to blaspheme against too – to free ourselves from the chains of irrational guilt. Indeed these days it is probably more likely to be other ideology that keeps us in bondage

Carrying on with the theme of taking responsibility for ourselves – having given up blaming others, counteracted feelings of irrational guilt, we need to start changing habits of complaining and moaning about things. Just like we might make an effort to give up habits like over-eating or smoking, we need to make an effort to give up complaining and moaning. It's just as bad for our health. And just as with smoking or over-eating we need to take one step at a time. We need to try not complaining or criticising for one day or if you're a really bad case, for one hour, and then for one week. Sometimes we have a habit of complaining which is just the normal way we speak ( a verbal habit). It hasn't crossed our minds that it's particularly negative – it's just a habit of speech – it's just our way of saying hello. We can take responsibility for ourselves and the sort of atmosphere we create around us by giving up habits of criticising and complaining.

Then we can look at why we want to be miserable. What comfort do we gain from being miserable?. Self-pity can be a very cosy feeling – very safe. When we say to ourselves “I'm unhappy and it's their fault, nobody cares about me”, we are indulging ourselves in the comfort of being incapable. The end result of this will be that we stay unhappy but also that we never feel we have to do anything to change. If we find ourselves playing this game we need to do all we can to shake ourselves out of it and start living our lives. Not living our lives is a waste. If we find ourselves in the grip of self-pity we need to do something, almost do anything, we need to act, take action to get out of it – take control of our lives, take responsibility for ourselves. We could ask ourselves Does it work? Does self-pity help us to achieve whatever it is we are trying to achieve – does it work?

This leads to something else we need to do in order to take responsibility for ourselves. We need to clarify what we want in life, where we're going and then act on it. We may not have a very definitive picture of what we want to do with our lives, but we can all probably be clear about what is most important to us, what is central and most meaningful in our lives and therefore what we need to do to live our lives more fully.

The final thing I want to say about taking responsibility is that we need to try to be aware of choice in our lives. Sometimes we can bumble along in life as if there was no choice – we are doing what we do and being how we are because that's just the way things are. This is just lack of awareness – we are making unconscious choices and what we need to do is become more conscious in our decision making and more conscious that there are in fact decisions to make, and choices to take. There is no pre-ordained destiny, just actions and their consequences.

Spending Time Together

Friendship is the essence of Sangha and friendship takes time. Falling in love can happen instantaneously but friendship takes time and effort. So I just want to focus on this one aspect of friendship – spending time together. If you want to build a friendship with someone, you need to spend time together. The best way to do this I said earlier is to live and work together but failing that, spending time together regularly is essential for building friendship.

I would encourage you to spend time together if you want to build strong lasting, trusting friendships. In doing so you will be creating the Sangha in the most tangible way possible. The Buddha and Ananda spent more or less all of their time together – we may not be able to manage that, but we should be able to spend 2 hours a week with someone.

Generosity

As Buddhists generosity should be as much a daily practice as meditation. Through meditation we lay the foundations for Wisdom to arise, through generosity we lay the foundations for Compassion to arise. We need to take seriously the practice of generosity and think every day about how we can be generous that day and perhaps at the end of each day review how we have been generous. generosity is the key to happiness in life, or as Susan Jeffers puts it “the trick in life is not figuring out what you can get, but what you can give”.

The spirit of generosity is the spirit of the Sangha, it is the spirit of mutual helpfulness. Through generosity we overcome the barriers of separation between us and begin to live our ideals. Through generosity, egotism and selfishness begins to dissolve into altruism, love and compassion. Altruism,love and compassion are characteristic of the Sangha. The spirit of generosity and acts of generosity is how the Sangha manifests in the world. A Sangha that does not manifest in the world through acts of generosity is not a Sangha, it's a theory.

Now I'd like to look at what might be a hindrance to us in our endeavours to create Sangha. Put simply, selfishness is the greatest obstacle to be overcome if we want to create Sangha. There is one particular manifestation of selfishness that I'd like to focus on today because I think it is a major hindrance to the development of Sangha and indeed to Buddhist practice generally.

This form of selfishness is variously referred to as low self-esteem, lack of confidence, self-hatred and so on. This low self-esteem really gets in the way of making spiritual progress and it can play havoc with communication by bringing all sorts of assumptions into play. Assumptions about what the the other person is thinking or feeling which have no objective basis but are necessary for keeping the low self-esteem in place. Low self-esteem or lack of confidence is a bad habit. There are probably all sorts of reasons why it has become a habit – to do with upbringing, so-called religious conditioning, fear and so on and if it is so bad that it has become pathological we may need professional therapeutic or counselling help. However for most of us it is a bad habit that we need to to bring awareness to in the present and take steps to deal with.

Sometimes we need to ask ourselves whether in fact we do want to change, whether we want to leave low self-esteem behind us or whether in fact it is too much of a comfort for us to part with. In order to change this habitual mental state we need to act, to take up a challenge. We need to do things. If we wait to become confident before acting we won't become confident. Confidence comes to us as a consequence of what we do. If we act, in spite of lack of confidence we will gain confidence. This is the law of Karma. Karma means action.

In one of his talks, Subhuti said this about Karma:

“One of the reasons I think why we become obsessed with our own feelings is that we have little conviction in the efficacy of action. We don't actually believe that acting can in the end change the way we feel. Therefore we look for techniques and remedies – professional help, the stars, needles, whatever it is – in order to change us because we have no faith in the principle of karma. And this is pretty fundamental. As Buddhists, in Going for Refuge to the Dharma, this is one of the major principles that we take on. We take on the perspective that the universe is fundamentally moral, that morality, that ethics, is part of the nature of things. It is not something adventitious or added on or sort of made up or invented by man. It is not something that we can choose to have or not to have. The universe is, as it were,moral in its very nature. Skilful action always brings about the appropriate responses, the appropriate effects within the universe and within our own minds. It is not haphazard or random. The universe does not play dice with us. The principle of karma does not play dice with us. The effects that we get from our actions are part of the nature of things; it is the way things actually are. This is part of the meaning of Dharma, that in a sense you could say that our effort is rewarded. This is something that we can have complete confidence in.” (Subhuti, Padmaloka Books, Are Their Ethics in the Order,p.10)

Karma means that we can change. Karma means that we will change if we act skilfully. We need to act in the face of our fears and our actions will have the beneficial effect of changing us into more mature, confident, adult people with a capacity to live life more fully. Of course friendship also has the effect of combatting our low self-esteem. When somebody cares for us persistently it can breach the barriers of self-hatred and allow the light of metta to shine for us.

In order to create Sangha, to build connections with other Buddhists on the basis of our common ideals, we need to take action – we especially need to develop positive emotion and take responsibility for ourselves. We need to spend time together with our friends and we need to act on our generous impulses. If we act like this then the law of Karma guarantees that there will be a positive, beneficial outcome for ourselves and others.

Perhaps there is still one fundamental question I haven't dealt with in connection with creating Sangha and that is, why bother? Why bother creating a Sangha, why bother making connections with people, why bother building friendships?

Well it may be that there are all sorts of reasons which are pretty obvious to you, but I'll just mention one. One central reason why we should bother to create Sangha by building friendships, is because the interconnectedness of human beings is an aspect of Reality. We are not in reality separate independent units of consciousness with no connection to each other. In Reality we are interdependent and interconnected. We are inextricably bound up with each other and indeed with all sentient life. To create Sangha, to build friendships is to be in tune with Reality. It is to be in line with how things really are, how the world, the universe really is. And to be in tune with Reality is the way to overcome suffering. To be out of tune with Reality is to be in the realm of suffering. A good reason then to bother about taking responsibility for ourselves and creating the friendships which are the building bricks of Sangha is that it leads to a decrease in suffering and an increase in positivity and joy for both ourselves and others.

In the Gandhavyuha Sutra the boy Srisambhava and the girl Srimala praise spiritual friendship at length emphasising that we should put consistent effort in developing friendship. spiritual friendship helps the Bodhisattva in various ways – the Sutra puts it like this:

“Oh son of a noble family, kept back by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas do not fall into the pits of woeful existences; surrounded by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas do not turn away from the Great Career (Mahayana); exhorted by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas do not forsake the teachings of the Bodhisattvas; guarded by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas do not come under the power of bad friends; protected by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas do not lose the essential qualities of Bodhisattvas; directed by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas go beyond the world of ordinary men; taught by friends in the good life the Bodhisatvas do not lower themselves to the level of Sravakas and Pratyeka-buddhas; shielded by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas have risen above the world; tended by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas are not defiled by worldly things; guarded by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas are irreproachable as to their behaviour in all walks of life; uplifted by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas do not leave (unfinished) whatever (task) they have begun; taught and guarded by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas cannot be attacked by the defilements of selfish actions; having gained their strength from friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas are invincible by all the armies of Mara; relying on friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas increase in the characteristics of Enlightenment.” (quoted in Sangharakshita, The Eternal Legacy, p 227)

That is a good place to end.