Akshobhya: Holding Up The Mirror

This talk was given at the London Buddhist Centre in 1997 as the final talk in a series on six on the topic of Kshanti

I began the first talk (The Antidote to Snakebite) in this series of talks on Kshanti with a quote from the novel Kim, by Rudyard Kipling. The quote was a description of the Tibetan Wheel of Life. The Tibetan Wheel of Life is a visual depiction of the cycle of mundane existence. As the centre of thewheel of life are a cock a snake and a pig biting each others tails. They represent greed, hatred and spiritual ignorance, the basic mental poisons which keep the whole cyclic process going. The second circle of the wheel shows people descending and ascending, which indicates that within the round of mundane existence it is possible to go downwards into more negative mental states or upwards into more positive mental states. The third circle of the Wheel shows six realms of conditioned existence into which we can be reborn. They are the god realm, the realm of the titans, the hungry ghost realm, the hell realm, the animal realm and the human realm. These can also be seen to represent mental states that we inhabit from day to day or even from minute to minute. The outermost circle of the Wheel is a pictorial representation of the twelve links in the realm of cyclic conditionality which describe how the whole process of mundane existence goes round and round, lifetime after lifetime.

In that first talk I said that Kshanti was the antidote to the snakebite of anger and hatred. In the second talk (Kneeling in the Snow) on Patience I said that patience created a gap between feeling and the response to feeling. This corresponds to the point on the outer circle of the Wheel of Life between feeling and craving. This is the point where it is possible to break free of the reactive round of cyclic conditionality and move on to the creative spiral of accumulative conditionality. In the third talk (The Helpful Enemy) I said that forgiveness was the creative response that broke the cycle of negativity, forgiveness being a letting go of any desire for revenge or retaliation. Tolerance is a maintaining of the positive emotion and clarity of mind that assures progress on the spiral path and Receptivity to the sublime Truth of the Dharma is what eventually allows us to have knowledge and vision of things as they really are. This point of Insight is the point of no return. From this point we are assured of gaining Enlightenment.

The state of Enlightenment is described in various ways. It is described as Nirvana, Knowledge of the destruction of the mental poisons, an unconditioned way of seeing the conditioned, realisation of the One Mind and so on. None of the concepts is adequate. Language is necessarily dualistic and therefore incapable of encompassing experience beyond the dualism of subject and object. The experience of Enlightenment can be hinted at in poetry and metaphor, but not really described. Another approach to communicating the experience of Enlightenment is through the language of images and symbols. One of the most important sets of images and symbols is what is known as the Mandala of the Five Jinas or Five Buddhas.

The mandala is a circle symbol that occurs all over the world and it indicates a state of wholeness or completeness. The Mandala of the Five Jinas indicates the richness and abundance of the Enlightened Mind by depicting five Buddhas, each of which represents Enlightenment in its totality and each of which emphasises a particular aspect of Enlightenment. Traditionally, you enter the Mandala in the East, which, strangely enough is at the bottom of the picture. The Buddha in the East is Akshobya, the Imperturbable. Then you move around to the South on the left hand side of the picture and here you find Ratnasambhava, the Buddha of Generosity. In the West, at the top of the picture, you meet Amitabha, The Buddha of Love and Compassion. The Buddha of the North is Amoghasiddhi, the Buddha of Action and Fearlessness. At the Centre of the Mandala is Vairocana, the Illuminator.

Each of the Five Buddhas is associated with a particular colour, hand gesture, animal and emblem. All of this amounts to an extraordinarily rich symbolism. Each of the Buddhas is also associated with a particular mental poison. The five poisons are greed, hatred, spiritual ignorance, pride and envy. It is as if the Buddhas represent the complete transformation of a particular poison into something totally positive. The poison of hatred, anger or ill-will is associated with Akshobya.

Kshanti is the method by which hatred and anger is to be transformed and Akshobya is the end result of the complete transformation of hatred. This is the main connection between Ksanti-Paramita and the Buddha Akshobya. In the course of this talk I will draw out some more connections between the symbolism and attributes of Akshobya and the different aspects of Kshanti.

The Sanskrit word 'akshobya' means unshakeable. The Buddha Akshobya received the name because he took a vow in a previous lifetime never to give way to anger or malice, never to be unethical and many other things. Over lifetimes he was unshakeable in holding to his vow and thus became eventually the Buddha Akshobya, the unshakeable or imperturbable. Unshakeable means unwavering or firm and imperturbable means calm. This aspect of Akshobya the represents the dedication which is unwavering and calm, not easily disrupted. What the unshakeability and imperturbability of Akshobya is teaching us is that we must be determined and steadfast in our practice of the Dharma and not allow ourselves to be put off or dispirited by minor setbacks or upsets. All too often we are lacking in stamina. We don't perhaps have sufficient motivation or vision to rouse us to heroic effort.

Politicians for instance seem to have tremendous stamina although they may not put it to very skilful use. People in theatre or pop stars have stamina. In the world of business people exert themselves strenuously. It seems that when people are motivated enough they can perform great feats of energetic striving. Often the motivation is quite selfish in character. In the spiritual life we need that kind of stamina too. We need it in order to make the consistent effort that personal development demands and we need it if we are to be of help to others. Sangharakshita commented on this in a study seminar in . He said, “We are so effete in the spiritual life, more often than not. We cant stand any sort of strain; after any bit of extra effort we have to go away and rest, have a little holiday, sit down for a while, play a record and take things easy. Its pathetic! (Laughter.) Here you are, aspiring to gain Enlightenment, which is after all the most difficult thing you can possibly propose to yourself, and look how easily one usually takes it – what an easy time one gives oneself. And there, [[on the other hand]] are people aiming at the very inferior, trivial, easily attained things like the Presidency of the United States. Just look at the massive effort they are putting in – it puts us to shame!”( Mitrata, The Bodhisattva Ideal, 'Masculinity' and 'Femininity' in the Spiritual Life, p.46)

If you read the life of Sangharakshita or of other great Buddhists or remarkable practitioners from other religious traditions, you will find they all had great stamina and the ability and willingness to make consistent effort in pursuit of their goals. How can we develop stamina? The answer is with practice. We touched on this earlier in the talk on patience when Shantideva was quoted as saying, “There is nothing which remains difficult if it is practised. So, through practice with minor discomforts, even major discomfort becomes bearable” (Bodhicaryavatara, chapter on Kshanti) If we are to develop stamina we need to learn how to endure discomfort, whether it is physical discomfort or emotional discomfort. Endurance is an aspect of Kshanti. In the Dhammapada there are some verses that use the image of an elephant in connection with endurance. Verse 320 says: “I will endure words that hurt in silent peace as the strong elephant endures in battle arrows sent by the bow, for many people lack self-control.” And verse 327 says: “Find joy in watchfulness: guard well your mind. Uplift yourself from your lower self, even as an elephant draws himself out of a muddy swamp.” Verse 325 warns us against too much comfort-seeking and distraction. “The man who is lazy and a glutton, who eats large meals and rolls in his sleep, who is like a pig which is fed in the sty, this fool is reborn to a life of death.”

The elephants who bear the throne of Akshobya on their back can serve to remind us of the need for endurance. The elephants, because they are beneath the lotus, which symbolises the Transcendental, are here to represent the highest reaches of the mundane. They symbolise the unshakeable, imperturbable qualities that were perfected by Akshobya before he gained Enlightenment. They are the steadfast, calm, fearless foundation for the ego-shattering experience of Insight. They represent the ability to endure the ultimate discomfort of having no place to hide from the fierce light of Reality.

The quality of endurance is probably not very popular these days. Comfort and instant gratification are the hallmarks of our society. Endurance and the ability to postpone gratification of desires are hallmarks of the spiritual life. In his book “The Sibling Society”, Robert Bly argues that people no longer want to grow up and face the difficulties of adulthood. Instead we are creating what he calls a sibling society, a society of adolescents which demands little in the way of responsibility and difficult work. He says; “When enough people have slid backward into a sibling state of mind, society can no longer demand difficult and subtle work from its people – because the standards are no longer visible. Without the labour of artists, for example, to incorporate past achievements – in brushwork, in treatment of light, in depth of emotion, in mythological intensity – people with some talent can pretend to be genuine artists. Their choices seem to be to cannibalise ancient art, or to create absurdly ugly art that “makes a statement”. They don't ask themselves or each other for depth or intensity, and most contemporary critics pretend not to miss them.”

Bly goes on to define an adult as “a person not governed by the demands for immediate pleasure, comfort and excitement.” And in confessional tone he says: “The adult quality that has been hardest for me, as a greedy person, to understand is renunciation. The older I get, the more beautiful the word renunciation seems to me.”

If Bly is right and I suspect he has a point, then we have the task of not only counteracting our own tendencies to shy away from everything uncomfortable, but also the task of going against a strong trend in the society around us. We need to be on our mettle. Nothing worthwhile is achieved without dedicated effort and willingness to endure whatever privations occur along the way. If we want to achieve anything worthwhile with our lives we need to learn to endure and thereby build stamina. Sangharakshita touches on this when he says: “Perhaps our daily routine should be such that we are strengthened rather than weakened. Not too many mornings lying in bed; not taking things too easily; not too many holidays; not too many visits to the cinema. Quite apart from the question of distraction, all this can be very weakening. Under modern conditions we can end up rather weak creatures if were not careful. We very rarely have to work hard day after day, week after week, month after month, as many people in the world still have to do just to survive. We very rarely work for the Dharma with that sort of vigour and indifference to hardship and discomfort.” (Complete Works,Vol.16,p.207) The elephant of endurance is not disturbed or perturbed or put off by a few criticisms or by people being difficult. Endurance depends on a higher vision which sustains us through the discomforts of spiritual development.

In the palm of his left hand Akshobya holds a vajra. The vajra symbolises a union of opposites. One end of the vajra represents the mental poisons and the other end the five Wisdoms. The vajra is also a symbol of great energy directed toward breaking through to Enlightenment. The negative quality associated with Akshobya is anger or hatred. So the vajra here is a representation of the transformation of hatred into wisdom and of the enormous energy that is released by that transformation. As Vessantara puts it in “Meeting the Buddhas” : “....hatred can be redirected and used to further our development. When we are experiencing it there is often a kind of clear, cold precision to the way in which we see the faults of things. It is a state completely devoid of sentimentality or vagueness. We just have to see what the real enemy is. Once we hate suffering and ignorance, and are hell-bent on destroying them, that energy leads us to Akshobya's Pure Land rather than into the hells of violence and despair.” We transform our anger through the practices of patience and forgiveness, thus releasing energy for further spiritual development.

Our anger and hatred is often born out of our fear and insecurity. It is a defence against all that threatens our egotism. By letting go of anger we allow ourselves to feel the fear and also paradoxically gain confidence in ourselves as spiritual beings. We can re-direct the energy of our anger into taking those small risks that enable us to go beyond our current limitations. In this way we can become more confident and secure in our individuality and less prone to taking offence or holding on to grudges. The vajra is a profoundly optimistic symbol, indicating not only that all negative emotions can be transformed in Transcendent Wisdom, but that the seeds of Wisdom lie in those very negative emotions. A similar idea is expressed by the fact that the lotus, symbolising transcendental attainment has its roots in the mud of mundane concerns.

The right hand of Akshobya touches the earth. We encountered the earth-touching mudra (bhumisparsa-mudra) in the previous talk on receptivity (Creative Listening).

There we saw that at the time of the Buddhas Enlightenment he was challenged by Mara to produce a witness to testify to his right to sit on the Vajrasana, the spot where all the Buddhas of the past had gained Enlightenment. In response, the Buddha touched the earth and the Earth Goddess arose and testified that he had practised the Perfections in hundreds of previous lives and was therefore entitled to sit on the Vajrasana. In more conceptual terms we are told elsewhere that at the time of his Enlightenment the Buddha was able to remember all his previous lives. This episode refers to an overcoming of all vestiges of doubt by referring back to the experience of practising virtuous conduct over many lifetimes. This is also a reference to the law of Karma which states that skilful activity has beneficial consequences for us. If we behave skilfully we can expect to experience the fruits of that activity at some time. At the time of his Enlightenment the Buddha was experiencing the fruition of his skilfulness over many lifetimes. We can be confident that if we want to achieve spiritual progress and happiness, the law of Karma guarantees our success so long as we make the effort. If we get into a mood of doubting or despondency, we can look back at whatever is positive in our lives and feel assured that it is not lost or wasted. We can use that as a new starting point to stabilise us. To touch the earth of our skilful actions is to gain confidence and stability. Perhaps sometimes we should literally touch the earth in a ritual manner to feel for ourselves the stabilising effect of the bhumisparsa-mudra and all that it symbolises. Try it sometime when you're sitting in meditation posture. In terms of Kshanti, we saw earlier that this is an aspect of receptivity. We could say it is receptivity to the immutable law of Karma.

The next aspect of Akshobya I would like to look at is the most important quality of all – the Mirror-like Wisdom. The essential quality of a Buddha is Wisdom and when we contemplate or meditate on an archetypal Buddha we are trying to open up to that Wisdom and allow it to permeate our whole being to the point where we become the Wisdom. When we contemplate Akshobya we are trying to make ourselves receptive to his essence, which is the Mirror-like wisdom. The Mirror-like Wisdom reflects absolutely faithfully everything that comes into contact with it. It sees everything just as it is, with no preferences, no judgments, no ideas added on. The mind which is suffused with the Mirror-like Wisdom is completely impartial. It feels no need to choose one thing above another, it is not affected by one thing more than another, just as a mirror reflects faithfully what ever is put in front of it and doesn't retain some reflections and reject others. The mind which has attained to the Mirror-like Wisdom has of course transcended all duality of subject and object. It has seen through the illusory nature of conditioned existence and is beyond all distinctions, even the distinction between Samsara and Nirvana.

Has this any relevance for us on our comparatively low level of spiritual insight? Is there any lesson we can take from the Wisdom of Akshobya and apply it to our lives right now? And how does this relate to Kshanti? There are two connections I would like to make which I think are relevant to us here and now. These are to do with the areas of clear thinking and objectivity. The Mirror-like Wisdom, in particular, puts me in mind of clarity of thought. It seems to emphasise the absence of vagueness or confusion.

The opposite of clear thinking is, of course, vague or woolly thinking, which isn't really thinking at all. Usually we just let our minds wander around, like slightly demented characters, picking up pits and pieces here and there. Then we construct all sorts of views and opinions out of these bits and pieces and imagine that we've had some ideas. Most of our ideas are not our own, but simply an amalgam of various things we've heard or read, put together by our conditioned prejudices, to create a world view that keeps us reasonably sane. One of the first things we need to do if we are to develop clear thinking is to become aware of the extent to which all out thinking is influenced by the conditions which have surrounded us since birth.

Although we may like to think of ourselves as independently minded and wise to the world, we are more likely to be completely immersed in views and ideas that we simply ingested from the world around us in the same way that we learnt to speak. In fact the analogy with learning to speak is not just an analogy, because the very language carries meaning and ideas in it which we accept unquestioningly until something erupts in our experience that makes us sit up and take notice. In Buddhist terms it is not sufficient however for us to analyse or deconstruct language. What we really need to do is develop greater mindfulness and try to filter all our thinking through the purifying insights of Right View. To do that we need to have Right View or at least know what Right View is.

There can be no real or fruitful communication in the Sangha if we are starting from different or even opposing world views. For instance, to give an absurd example, if your basic world view is that suffering will be brought to an end by the demise of Capitalism and the dictatorship of the proletariat and my basic world view is that the extinction of suffering depends on the individual making the effort to develop spiritually in co-operation with other like-minded individuals, then although we may seem to speaking the same language and even in broad agreement at times, in fact we will be worlds apart and not communicating at all.

In the Sangha we want to foster genuine communication and therefore we need to establish the basis of Right View and carry on our discussions in terms of Right View. To do this we have to make an attempt to weed out the wrong views that inevitably could our minds, because the world we live in is awash with them. There is a direct connection between reducing input and clear thinking. What we feed into our minds is what comes out as views and opinions If we feed our minds on a daily dose of news and media, that is what will have the biggest influence on our thinking. If we feast our minds on a daily repast of Buddhist scriptures and commentaries then they will begin to form the basis for our thinking and as Buddhists that would be an altogether healthier diet for us. It is not just the content of what we read that affects our thinking but also the style. If we read books that are written by people who can think clearly and express themselves clearly, that will help us to think clearly ourselves.

The topic of clear thinking is not unrelated to the topic of objectivity. To be objective we need to be able to distinguish opinions from facts. This is not necessarily very common. A simple example that is given is the way people say something like 'its a terrible day' when what they mean is 'its raining'. The terrible day is a value judgment and a matter of opinion. The rain is a fact. In order to be objective and therefore truthful we need to be able to tell what is a value judgment or opinion and what is a fact. So for instance when we use terms like always and ever as in “I'm always last to know what's going on” or “Nobody ever listens to me” we are probably being poetic rather than factual. But its important for us to realise that, otherwise we start to believe ourselves on an emotional level and that can have significant consequences. I'm not suggesting that we should never use idiomatic speech, but rather that we should try to be clear about what is subjective and what is objective in our communication.

Often we hold very strongly to our views and this is for very subjective, emotional reasons and one way of beginning to loosen our attachment to views is to start to see the element of subjectivity and emotionality and try to distinguish that from what is objective and factual. The basic wrong view that we all suffer under is the view that we are a separate self or ego-identity and this conditions most of out other views. This sense of separate selfhood, as I said in the first talk in this series (The Antidote to Snakebite), is the fundamental prejudice from which all others flow. To begin to undermine or attenuate this view we need to approach it from many angles. We need to cultivate self-metta, we need to practise generosity, we need to immerse ourselves in Buddhist study, we need to experience solitude and we need to make an effort to distinguish what is objective from what is subjective in our thoughts and words. If we achieve greater clarity we will be able to practise greater tolerance towards those who are different from us and those we disagree with, without being vague or woolly or compromising our real beliefs.

The Mirror-like Wisdom of Akshobya is neither subjective nor objective. It is Transcendental and therefore beyond views altogether. Here Reality is experience, experience is Reality. As Vessantara puts it in Meeting the Buddhas – when we enter the mandala “we see the deep blue figure of the Immutable Buddha, holding the thunderbolt sceptre of Reality which smashes through all our ideas and concepts about it. At the same time the dark blue fingertips of his right hand touch the earth, the earth of direct experience, which is the only thing upon which any of us can finally rely.”

To finish off this series of talks on Kshanti I will just leave on the mountain peak of the Diamond Sutra with its description of the highest level of Kshanti-Paramita. This is what it says, “Moreover, Subhuti, the Tathagatas perfection of patience is really no perfection. And why? Because, Subhuti, when the king of Kalinga cut my flesh from every limb, at that time I had no perception of a self, of a being, of a soul, or a person. And why? If, Subhuti, at that time I had a perception of a self, I would also have had a perception of ill-will at that time. And so, if I had had a perception of a being, of a soul, or of a person. With my superknowledge I recall that in the past I have for five hundred births led the life of a sage devoted to patience. Then also have I had no perception of a self, a being, a soul, or a person.”

Creative Listening

This is the fifth chapter of my booklet Kshanti, originally given as part of a series of talks at the London Buddhist Centre in 1997

Receptivity requires energy and effort. It is perhaps understandable that receptivity should be thought of as passive. You don't have to make an effort to receive. Or so we think, at least. But what about receiving criticism or praise, don't we have to make an effort to listen to what is being said and remain open to it?

Receptivity as an aspect of Kshanti is receptivity to the Buddha’s teaching. Creative listening or creative reading is listening or reading in a way that is not passive. It means actively engaging with whatever is being heard or read, asking oneself how does it apply to me, how is it related to the actual practice of the spiritual life.

Receptivity presupposes something worth receiving and somebody capable of expounding it. To be receptive therefore we need to have faith in the Buddha’s teaching (the Dharma), faith that it does emanate from a higher state of consciousness, and also faith in spiritual hierarchy, faith that there are those who are more spiritually developed than we are, who have understood and experienced the Dharma more deeply. Sraddha, which is faith in the Buddhist sense, is based on intuition, reason, and experience. Our initial intuition is later confirmed by our reason and experience and this gives rise to even greater faith. Our faith in the Dharma is initially an intuition. There is a response in us, something resonates with our experience, it feels true. Later, after some practice we know that it works from our own experience. And reasoning from this we can deduce that even more is possible. The Dharma is not just words or concepts however. It is a living thing. It manifests in the lives of individuals. Our faith is also based on seeing that there are some individuals, who as a result of practising the Dharma are more aware and more friendly what we are. Or it may be that we feel there is something about people who practise the Dharma which we like, even though we don't quite know what it is. And we want to discover more. We want to experience for ourselves the benefits of the Dharma. So we listen, we learn, we practise. We try to be receptive to what we read and to what we hear from those we respect and look up to. We acknowledge that we have something to learn and that there are people who can teach us both by their words and by their behaviour. We acknowledge the existence of a spiritual hierarchy, a hierarchy of spiritual development.

Spiritual hierarchy is not a matter of titles or status. That is ecclesiastical hierarchy. Until Insight is attained it is possible for people to fall back to a lower level. It is quite difficult to see spiritual hierarchy. Spiritual hierarchy manifests in how someone behaves and how they are. It is not about what people say necessarily, although what people say and how they say it may give some indication of their spiritual development. If someone is manipulative, exploitative, harsh, unkind, greedy, deceiving or boastful about their attainments then we can be sure that they are not particularly spiritually developed. On the other hand if someone is mindful, kind, generous, truthful and objective then they are more likely to be spiritually experienced. However it is not easy to judge whether someone is compassionate, aware and earnestly striving unless we know them very well. And even then, unless we ourselves are on the same level of spiritual development or a higher level we may not be able to really know how developed someone is. This is why it is sometimes said in traditional Buddhism, that the disciple doesn't choose the guru, but rather the guru chooses the disciple, by which is meant that the disciple is in no position to recognise the guru. We don't need to be in contact with someone who is vastly more spiritually developed in order to make progress. We just need someone who is a little bit more experienced than us, who can give us a helping hand. But we do need to have someone to look up to, someone we consider more spiritually developed, otherwise the Dharma is dead. If we have faith in the Dharma and faith in spiritual hierarchy, we can practise receptivity.

Of course we can be receptive in a more ordinary sense to our friends who are on the same level as us, spiritually speaking. Sometimes an ordinary friend can point things out to us or give us a different perspective, especially when we are in a mood. We can learn from all sorts of people and situations if we are receptive enough, if our responses are creative enough. There are lessons about impermanence and suffering confronting us all the time, if we care to look. What can you learn by observing your parents? What can you learn by observing your children? What can you learn from your responses to various stimuli as you walk down the street? What can you learn about yourself from your attitudes to food, money, sex, clothing and so on? If you are listening creatively, the world is all the time teaching its lessons.

We can also be receptive to ourselves in the sense of acknowledging and reflecting on our experience and achievements. This is a good way to build confidence and self-metta. At the time of the Buddha’s Enlightenment it is said that he was attacked by Mara and tempted by Mara (the personification of evil) and when this failed to disrupt or disturb him, Mara tried a different tack. He said, ‘What right have you to sit here on the spot where the Buddhas of the past have sat, who do you think you are?’ The Buddha’s response was to touch the earth and when he touched the earth, the Earth Goddess arose and she testified that the Buddha had practised spiritual virtues for many lifetimes and was therefore ready to sit on the vajrasana, the throne of Enlightenment. We could understand this attack by Mara to mean that at the time of Enlightenment there arose in the Buddha’s mind thoughts of hatred, craving and doubt and he dealt with them by suffusing them with awareness. He overcame the doubt by referring back to his experience and achievements. We can do this too. We can look back on our experience and achievements and gain confidence from them. In this way we can be receptive to ourselves and make creative use of our lives.

There are many different elements to receptivity. There is entreaty and supplication, as in the Sevenfold Puja. (1) There is listening, reflecting and meditating, shruta-mayi prajna, chinta-mayi prajna and bhavana-mayi prajna; the three kinds of wisdom. There is self-examination and self- questioning. There is scepticism as opposed to cynicism. And there is humiliation through contact with Reality.

The sevenfold Puja is a Buddhist ritual which is performed regularly to cultivate spiritual emotions. The seven stages are recognition of the Ideal, devotion, dedication, confession, rejoicing, receptivity and giving up personal gain. The sixth stage, the stage of receptivity, is called Entreaty and Supplication. In this section of the puja, what we are doing in effect is asking for a teaching. We are declaring our receptivity to the Dharma. Of course it is not enough to say we are receptive, we have to actually be receptive. Sometimes we ask questions as a way of avoiding the truth rather than penetrating deeper into it. Being receptive to the Dharma is not simply a matter of acquiring more knowledge, it is more a case of being willing to change as a result of the new insights we gain from hearing the Dharma. It is not easy to have an open mind and an open heart. Our fear and insecurity urges us to put up defences and be closed to whatever disturbs the status quo. Our intellectual arrogance leads us to think we have understood the Dharma before we have allowed the meaning to touch us. It is easy to understand the words but miss the point. So when we are asking to hear the Dharma, whether at the Entreaty and Supplication stage of the puja of in a study group, we need to be genuinely open to the message of the

Dharma, which means recognising the fears, insecurity and arrogance that keep us closed and suspending our prejudices for a while. There is a story from the Zen tradition about a professor who visits a Zen master to ask some question. After they've spoken a little the Zen master offers him some tea, which the professor gladly accepts. The Zen master begins to pour the tea and he keeps pouring and the tea rises to the rim of the cup and over the rim and he keeps pouring. The professor is astonished at this and he watches the tea come up over the rim of the saucer and start to flow onto the table. Eventually, unable to hold himself back, he says rather loudly, ‘My cup is full, you can’t get any more in.’ And the Zen master looked straight at him, the way Zen masters always do in these stories and said, ‘Yes, exactly, your cup is full, come back when you are ready to receive the answers to your questions.’ Obviously the point of the story is that although the professor was asking for instruction, he was not actually receptive enough to really take it in.

The three levels of wisdom, shruta-mayi prajna or listening, chinta-mayi prajna or reflecting and bhavana-mayi prajna or meditating, give us an idea of how to be really receptive. Listening, sruta-maya prajna, which includes reading, is concerned with gaining knowledge of the Dharma in a fairly ordinary sense. This means learning about the Four Noble Truths, The Noble Eightfold Path, the law of conditionality, the five precepts and so on. We need to have a knowledge of these basic teachings, so that when we manage to concentrate our minds and want to use that concentration to penetrate deeper into the Truth, we will have something to work with. Otherwise as Sangharakshita puts it, our concentration will be of no more use to us than a sharpened pencil to a man who cannot read or write. (2)

Chinta-mayi prajna or reflecting corresponds more to what I have called creative listening. At this point we are turning over in our minds what we have heard or read and making it our own, so to speak. We are going deeper into the meaning of what we have received and allowing it to affect our lives. This stage of reflection is, you could say, the stage of mundane receptivity and it paves the way for bhavana-mayi prajna or meditation, which in this context if the stage of Transcendental Insight, At this point, bhavana-maya prajna, one is not reflecting on the Truth, but one has to some extent become the Truth. This is the stage of the perfection of receptivity, when the Dharma has permeated ones whole being and one is utterly changed by it.

Of course receptivity is not only a matter of listening to others and taking in what is said. We also need to listen to and question ourselves. This involves self-examination in the sense of trying to be honest with oneself about what one does or does not understand and being honest with oneself about just how receptive or not one is. It is better to be clear that we honestly don't like a particular teaching and don’t want to practise it than to just avoid it or pretend that we accept it. For instance, for a number of years I didn't like the teaching about the four dhyanas, the four levels of meditative concentration. I used to find it depressing and just avoided it. It took me some time to realise that it was meant as a helpful guide to recognising and understanding meditative states rather than as a judgment on my poor attempts at concentration. Recognising that I simply didn't like the teaching was a starting point from which I could understand what was really going on. I just felt bad about my ability as a meditator, and my lack of confidence in my abilities was nothing to do with the teaching of the four dhyanas. Self-examination can help us to become more self-aware.

By questioning oneself I mean asking oneself how a particular teaching or particular aspect of the Dharma applies to ones life. How is it going to help me to progress spiritually? What should I do as a result of this? Does this teaching have any practical application in my life? How does it connect with other things I have heard or read? For instance, do the contents of this book have any application to my life? Do I want to change anything in my life as a result of reading this?

This questioning attitude can also be related to scepticism. It is reasonable to be sceptical with regard to what you read or hear. To be sceptical is to question or to accept things provisionally. This is better than being gullible. However we need to be careful that our scepticism doesn't become cynicism. Cynicism is a negative mental state that tends to undermine everything of value and seeks to drag everything down to a low level. Cynicism is a form of ill-will or hatred.

Scepticism on the other hand is a reasonable questioning, a suspension of judgment and it can be very positively motivated. At its best, scepticism is an attitude of seeking the truth and not settling for less. In this way scepticism is related to receptivity. Blind faith is not necessary in Buddhism. All teachings are meant to be put to the test and accepted or rejected according to whether they conduce to spiritual development or hinder it. We must be careful though that we do test the teachings rigorously, whether in our thinking or practice and not reject what we merely dislike. Spiritual intelligence is something quite different from intellectual ability in the ordinary sense. Spiritual intelligence is an intuitive knowing of the truths of impermanence and conditionality that goes far beyond any mere understanding of the concepts. So when we subject the Dharma to sceptical questioning, intuition and experience should come into play as much as intellectual examination. Also traditionally it is recommended that we have recourse to those whom we consider to be wise and not rely totally on our own ability to perceive the truth. We may simply not have the capacity as yet. This point is illustrated in the Kalama Sutta. The Kalamas of

Kesaputta were confused by all the different teachings they heard about how to attain the Transcendental and they asked the Buddha how they could tell what was correct and what wasn't. The Buddha said,

“Now Kalamas, do not ye go by hearsay, nor by what is handed down by others, nor by what people say, nor by what is stated on the authority of your traditional teachings. Do not go by reasoning, nor by inferring, nor by argument as to method, nor from reflection on and approval of an opinion, nor out of respect, thinking a recluse must be deferred to. But, Kalamas, when you know, of yourselves: "These teachings are not good; they are blameworthy; they are condemned by the wise: these teachings, when followed out and put in practice, conduce to loss and suffering" - then reject them.”

There are three things to note about this. Firstly, the questioning is about methods of attaining the Transcendental, not about the existence of a transcendental state or the possibility of attaining it. The existence of a transcendental state is by its very nature not susceptible to sceptical reasoning. Secondly, the teachings are to be tested by the results achieved from practising them. In other words, experience is the real touchstone. Thirdly, the testimony of the Wise needs to be listened to carefully. In being receptive to what we hear and read there is no need for us to be gullible, but to really know for ourselves what is true we have to practise the teachings and consider the views of those who are more spiritually experienced

If we are truly receptive to the Dharma we will be humiliated by it. As the Diamond Sutra says, "those sons of good family, who will take up these very Sutras, and will bear them in mind, recite and study them, they will be humbled, well humbled will they be!" (4)

The Dharma undermines our ego-identity and although we may think this is a very good thing and nod approvingly when we hear about it, when it actually starts to happen to us we may feel very distressed indeed. We may even think that the Dharma is not really working properly, because we intended to gain happiness and well-being and instead we are feeling miserable. The spiritual life is a happy life but it is not an easy life and as we become more aware we will discover unpleasant truths about ourselves, This means that the Dharma is working. A process of purification is underway and we need to recognise this. We may feel humiliated because we are not the person we thought we were or wanted others to think we were, but there is no need to be despondent. As the process of gaining greater self-knowledge and purifying ourselves carries on we will gradually emerge happier and brighter. Spiritual rebirth often involves a humiliating journey through the dark night of the soul. This is what having our ego-identity undermined involves. We have to be transformed, broken down and re-assembled, not simply re- decorated with a new label such as Buddhist or Venerable or Reverend.

My strongest personal experience of this was in 1986 when I was invited on an Ordination retreat in Tuscany. I was invited in March and by May I had started to experience all the parts of my psyche that didn't want to have anything to do with Ordination or spiritual life. I went to Tuscany but Sangharakshita felt he couldn't ordain me because of the emotionally unstable state I was in. This was a shock. I was devastated. My pride was squashed. My ego-sense was disoriented and I entered a dark night of the soul; depression, anger, doubt, isolation, fear.

But it was impermanent thankfully and here I am, testimony to the fact that humiliation is not fatal.

Traditionally, the disciple was humiliated by the guru in order that the ego got a good bashing. But really there is probably no need for anyone to humiliate us in this way. If we practise the Dharma, if we meditate and enter into communication with others, if we develop ethical sensitivity and if we study the teachings, we will find ourselves humbled often enough by our own selfishness and the sublimity of the Ideal.

To be humiliated by the Dharma is one thing, to practise humility another. Humility as it is usually understood is not necessarily a positive thing and may often be simply a form of inverted pride. It may even be a way of avoiding humiliation. As James Boswell puts it in "The Life of Samuel Johnson" – “Sometimes [humility] may proceed from a man’s strong consciousness of his faults being observed. He knows that others would throw him down, and therefore he had better lie down softly of his own accord.” (5) So it is not enough to be humble. In "Wisdom Beyond Words" Sangharakshita puts it like this

“You need to take risks. If you don't ever face the possibility of failure then you don't ever face the possibility of humiliation and therefore of growth. Failure will only have meaning for you if you have made a tremendous effort to succeed. The terrible temptation is to venture nothing. But in fact, the less you risk, the greater your fear of failure, and the greater the potential humiliation. So much becomes invested in the imperative of success that you cannot even give a lecture in case it should not be an astounding success. You become paralysed. You haven't gone beyond success and failure; you are beneath them. It you're not careful, you become someone with a great future behind them.” (6)

By taking risks we can be humiliated. We need to learn to make the most of humiliation. It is an opportunity to loosen our grip on our ego- identity, an opportunity to become a little less attached to our fixed self view and therefore an opportunity for spiritual insight. There are all sorts of ordinary situations which we might find humiliating. Travelling in a foreign country where we don't speak the language could be humiliating. Being ill and losing control over our body can be humiliating. Growing old and being patronised by younger people could be humiliating. Giving a public talk and making a mess of it could be humiliating. Trying to be friendly to someone and getting rejected can be humiliating [NOTE]. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples. Probably everyone has their own particular fear of failure, which could involve the risk of humiliation. So there are plenty of opportunities on a fairly mundane level for us to have an experience of undermining our ego identity. But receptivity to the Dharma will enable us to do a much more systematic and thorough job.

Receptivity to the Dharma will turn us inside out and upside down as it were. It will transform us. As Sangharakshita puts it, “Receptivity means that one should be prepared for a radical change in ones whole mode of being, ones whole way of life, ones whole way of looking at things.” (7) Often we are not prepared for such radical change and so we resist. We don't really want to see things differently. We don't really want to see the truth although it may be staring us in the face. For instance, the fact of death is extremely difficult to really grasp, to feel with our whole being. We can see it all around us if we look, but we don't take it in, we don't let it affect us to the core of our being. It takes much reflection and practice before we can really face the fact of death and especially the fact of our own death. The story of Kisa Gotami illustrates this point:

“…….at that this moment there came up a young girl carrying a dead baby on her hip. I had seen her when I was last in Savatthi. Her name was Kisa Gotami. She was thin of body and plain of feature, and born of a poor family. She had been treated disdainfully by all, especially by her husband’s family. Then she had borne a son, and people no longer saw her ugly features, but respected her for he boy-child. That was when I had last seen her. Now the child lay dead upon her hip and she was distraught with grief. She told the Master that she had gone from door to door pleading with folk to give her medicine to restore her child to life, but they had all laughed at her. Then one kinder than the others had told her of the Master, saying that he could give her medicine for her child. And that was why she now came. She held forth the child to the Master, and the depth of agony in her eyes made her seem crazed. He looked upon her with deep tenderness and said:

“Sister, go enter the town and bring back a mustard seed; but - it must come from a house where no one yet has died.” The young girl took the dust from his feet and departed with great hope and joy. That evening she returned. “Gotami, have you found the little mustard seed?” he asked. “The work of the little mustard seed has been done,” she answered, and went on to tell him what had happened. She had inquired of the first house for a little mustard seed, which the great Buddha had said would cure her child. The folk there were glad to give her mustard seed, for they felt pity for her. Then she added: “But the mustard seed must be from a house where none has yet died.” Then they of that house said softly: “Who shall say how many have diedhere? Last week the house-mother died here. The dead are many; the living are few.”

“Such mustard seed will then have no virtue,” she said, and departed sorrowfully to a second house, where she was told the same thing, and then to a third, but always they of the house replied: “The dead are many; the living are few.” By evening she knew her quest would have no ending, and the dead child grew heavy on her hip. Suddenly it came to her that it was out of his great compassion the Master had sent her upon this quest that she might find out for herself the first great truth that all must suffer. Her eyes filled with tears that the World Honoured One should seek to help her, even her, the despised and ugly one. She took the dead child and laid him in a charnel field, for she was poor and had no money for cremation. It was late at night when the Master finished teaching Kisa Gotami. He looked across to the city where the lights flickered and were

extinguished, as one by one the folk lay down to sleep. Even so, he concluded, as little lights are the lives of men. They flicker for an instant and are gone.” (8)

The Buddha was patient with Kisa Gotami but he didn't try to protect her from the truth. He set her up to receive the teaching gradually. She was receptive to the truth and seeing the implications, sought out further teaching. Her openness to the truth brought about a radical transformation. Receptivity means being prepared for radical and total transformation. As Robert Thurman puts it:

“In the face of the incomprehensibility of things, ordinary knowledge and especially convictions are utterly lost; this is because the mind loses its capacity to objectify anything and has nothing to grasp onto. The mind reaches a stage where it can bear its lack of bearings, as it were, can endure this kind of extreme openness.” (9)

I have been trying to communicate the importance of patience, forgiveness and tolerance, both in our individual lives and on the world stage. This is summed up in the verse from the Dhammapada which I have quoted frequently: “Not by hatred are hatreds ever pacified here. They are pacified by love. This is the eternal law.” In South Africa this eternal law has been courageously put into practice in the Truth and reconciliation process. One of the great champions of this process and these virtues is South Africa’s Bishop Desmond Tutu and I would like to give him the last word:

“Forgiveness is not abstract or woolly. It comes when we recognise our relatedness, what we call ubuntu. It’s warm and welcoming and means “I am because you are.” (10)

Notes:

1. Puja, Windhorse 1999
2. Sangharakshita, A Survey of Buddhism, Windhorse 1993, p.194
3. Numerical Discourses of the Buddha, trans. Nyanaponika & Bodhi, Altamira 1999, p.65
4. Sangharakshita,Wisdom Beyond Words, Windhorse 1993, p.157
5. J. Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
6. Sangharakshita,Wisdom Beyond Words, Windhorse 1993, p.160
7. Sangharakshita, Masculinity and Femininity in the Spiritual Life, Lions Roar, Norwich 1987, p.13
8. Marie Beauzeville Byles, Footprints of the Buddha,Quest 1972, p.96/97
9. The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti, trans. R. Thurman, introduction.
10. Dharma Life magazine, No. 9, Windhorse 1998, p.35

The Art of Disagreement

This is the fourth chapter of my booklet Kshanti, originally given as part of a series of talks at the London Buddhist Centre in 1997

Tolerance is not always seen as a virtue. Some of the connotations of the term tolerance are not very pleasant. For instance, to tolerate can mean to put up with something in a rather grudging or resentful manner or tolerance can be associated with weakness, an inability to stand your ground and assert yourself. I have heard tolerance defined as supercilious condescension. And tolerance is often thought to mean agreement. Tolerance is not always seen as a virtue and even when it is seen as a virtue it is often misunderstood.

From a Buddhist perspective, tolerance is extremely important and it has been a striking feature of Buddhism down the twenty five centuries of its history. Tolerance is the acceptance that other people hold different views from ourselves. Tolerance is the willingness to allow others to be different in their views and actions. Above all tolerance is the absolute avoidance of using power, violence or coercion to force other people to think and believe as we do. Tolerance is an attitude of loving kindness (metta) towards those who hold views which are different from ours and even towards those who hold views which are repugnant to us.

Intolerance on the other hand is the willingness to use and the use of force, violence and coercion to make other people behave as we want them to and hold the views we want them to hold. There is also the intolerance that doesn't want to force others to change but simply wants to exterminate or exile them for being different, There have been many atrocious examples of intolerance in the religious and political history of the world. The systematic extermination of the French Cathars by the Catholic church, the systematic extermination of Jews by the Nazis, the inhuman treatment of black and coloured people under the South African apartheid system. And it continues today. I read earlier in the year about the case of a man in Kuwait who had converted from Islam to Christianity. Apparently there was the distinct possibility that the courts could single him out as someone who could be killed with impunity by any Muslim, because his apostasy was seen as such an insult to Islam. There is also the case of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. There was the blasphemy trial against the editor and publishers of Gay News in 1977 which resulted in convictions. And of course the continuous warfare in the world is a sad testimony to the intolerance that exists between peoples of different national religious and ethnic backgrounds.

Tolerance is not about agreement or being vague about differences and disagreements. Tolerance is maintaining metta (loving kindness) towards those who hold views which are different from ours and which are even repugnant to us. Metta is the basic Buddhist attitude and tolerance is the application of that basic attitude to the area of difference and disagreement with others. Tolerance is the art of disagreement. Art implies both skill and creativity. It also implies imagination. Tolerance is the application of skill, imagination and creativity to the areas of difference and disagreement. This of course takes time. As with any art or skill the art of disagreement takes time to learn.

There are many areas of difference and disagreement between people. There are different religious and political beliefs, different views about art, philosophy, economics, ecology and so on. There are differences of lifestyle, cultural differences, different sexual preferences. There are differences of gender, race, colour, nationality and language. There are differences of personality and temperament, different individual strengths and weaknesses, There are different ways of dressing, different colour preferences, different likes and dislikes. Wherever we look there is difference; a rich, abundant profusion of difference. And this is what causes a lot of trouble in the world and between individuals, this fact of difference. Because our attitude to this fact of difference leads to disagreement and not enough is understood about the art of disagreement.

How do we practise tolerance without being weak, vague or negatively condescending. It will be argued that we surely cannot be tolerant of those who preach violence and prejudice. Fascists, racists and extremists of all sorts; are we to be tolerant of them? Being intolerant means using force, violence and coercion to make others change, therefore if we practise intolerance towards those whose views we find despicable, we will be joining them, descending to their level and in that way giving them a victory.

As the Dhammapada says,

“Not by hatred are hatreds ever pacified. They are pacified by love. This is the eternal law.” (1)

The truly Buddhist attitude towards those who hold repugnant views is one of compassion, because they live in a hell realm.

This experience is very graphically illustrated by Brian Keenan in his account of his captivity in the Lebanon. Here he is describing an incident involving one of his captors whose name is Said.

“ Suddenly the dreaming silence was shattered. Said was weeping great shuddering sobs. This was a different kind of weeping from the automatic religious melancholia of his prayers. He walked around the room crying, the whole room seemed to fill up with his anguish. I felt, as I never had before, great pity for this man and felt if I could I would reach out and touch him. I knew instinctively some of the pain and loss and longing that he suddenly found himself overwhelmed by.

The weeping continued. Said became fleshy and human for me. Here was a man truly stressed. His tears now wrenched a great wellspring of compassion from me. I wanted to nurse and console him. I felt no anger and that defensive laughter which had before cocooned me was no longer in me. …………. I felt my own tears. I was transformed with a deep and helpless love for him. I had become what he was calling out for.

I remained watching. There was something unbearably beautiful about it. At once terrified and intrigued, my loathing for this man began to fall from me. I no longer thought of him as nothing and felt guilty for having dismissed him so completely. Said's violence against us was a symptom of his need for us.” (2)

If we could all access this level of compassion and sympathy for our common humanity there would be far more reaching out to others and the world would indeed be a far happier place.

As Buddhists we try to be tolerant and have an attitude of metta and compassion towards others but that does not mean that we believe nobody should ever be restrained against their will. Of course it is necessary to restrain people forcefully sometimes, so that others can live in peace and safety. The principle involved here is the principle of the power mode being used in the service of the love mode. As Sangharakshita puts it,

“It will not, of course, be possible for even the most faithful observer of the First Precept to operate, all at once, in terms of the love mode, eschewing the power mode completely. We live in a world dominated by the power mode. The love mode comes into operation only in the case of exceptional individuals, and even they may not always find it possible, or even desirable, to act in accordance with the love mode.

In this connection two principles may be laid down. (a) Whenever one has to operate in accordance with the power mode, the power mode must always be subordinated to the love mode. A simple, everyday example of such subordination is when the parent, out of love for the child, forcibly restrains him from doing something that will harm him. (b) Within the Spiritual Community it is impossible to act in accordance with the power mode, for by its very nature as a voluntary association of free individuals sharing certain common goals the Spiritual Community is based on the love mode.” (3)

To continue for a while looking at extreme cases, it could be asked of myself or other Buddhists, would you not have taken up arms against Hitler, surely National Socialism was an unadulterated evil. I personally cannot give a straight yes or no answer to this sort of speculative question. I can tell you that my ideals and principles are the ideals and principles of the Buddha’s teaching as stated in the Dhammapada –not by hatred are hatreds ever pacified - and as laid down in the first precept- the undertaking not to harm living beings-, but I cannot say definitely that I know how I would act in any particular extreme situation. I will not know until I face the test. Even then I could not promise to be consistent. We are always changing and learning; how we act today may not be how we act tomorrow, because we learn from experience. There is an example of this in Primo Levi’s book "If not now, when?" The Jewish partisans have travelled from Russia across Poland and into Germany. The war is ended, but one of their number is shot and killed as they pass through a German town. They return in the evening and take revenge by attacking the town hall and killing several of the towns’ leaders. Next day, one of the Jewish fighters says that this is exactly how the Germans had behaved and he does not want to sink to that level of violence and vengeance again. By killing his enemies he had realised that he did not want to kill his enemies.

It is often in extreme or unusual circumstances that our perspective on life changes and we experience some great insight or transformation of character. Tolstoy expresses this through Prince Andrew in ‘War and Peace’. He falls, wounded, on the battlefield and as he lies there he is utterly changed by the sight of the sky:

“How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy am I to have found it at last. Yes! all is vanity, all is falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and stillness.” (4)

I do not know what response I would have in an extreme situation or whether I would stand by my principles. I suspect none of us can tell really.

I wanted to talk about extreme situations because I have noticed that people often raise this sort of objection to spiritual principles. [What will happen to all the animals if everyone becomes vegetarian? What will happen to the human race if everyone becomes celibate?] However, I think there are many less extreme and more relevant day to day situations in which we can apply the principle of tolerance and the fact that we do not know how we would respond in an extreme situation does not have to be a hindrance to us. The difficulty about tolerance and disagreement seems to be that often disagreement is interpreted as intolerance. So when a Buddhist says that he finds some of the doctrines of Christianity or Islam repugnant and totally disagrees with them, this is seen as intolerance. And of course Buddhists should not be intolerant. So expressing strong disagreement can be seen as going against the principles of Buddhism. However, you could say that the opposite is the case and that it is our duty as Buddhists clearly and distinctly to state our disagreement with views, beliefs, doctrines or behaviours which we consider to be harmful and an obstacle to the development of the individual.

For example, according to the Brahmajala Sutta, which is the first Sutta of the Pali Canon, belief in a personal god is a wrong view and constitutes an obstacle to spiritual development. There is no god to punish us or reward us. The notion that there is limits the need to take personal responsibility and spiritual development requires that we take responsibility for ourselves completely. The materialist view is also attacked in the Brahmajala Sutta because it denies the possibility of higher states of consciousness. There is more to life than the material and physical. There is a spiritual dimension and the current mass religion of consumerism and greed is a hindrance to spiritual development.

We do not have to agree with what others believe or how they behave. We do not even have to accept, in the sense that acceptance implies approval. We can reject views and beliefs that we do not find acceptable or useful. We do need to make a distinction however between people and the views that they hold. This is very difficult. There tends to be an identification of persons and views but this is wrong. We can acknowledge and experience our common humanity with those whose views we disagree with. We can disagree with Christianity without hating Christians. We can be repelled by aspects of Islam, without hating Muslims. We can find the excesses of consumerism distasteful, without hating those responsible.

According to the teaching of the Buddha ( the Dharma), nobody is beyond redemption and our attitude towards all should be one of metta and helpfulness. The Bodhisattva does not reject those who go against the Dharma. On the contrary, they are the ones who most need to be helped and one way of helping is to point out that they are wrong and to show them another perspective and other possibilities. To disagree with someone may be the most helpful thing to do. I must confess that it took me a long time to realise that it was possible to reject a doctrine or belief without rejecting or despising those who adhered to it. I was brought up as a Roman Catholic and subjected to a crude indoctrination from an early age. In later years when I came to understand what had been done to me I felt outraged and often reacted against priests and nuns in quite colourful language. However, later still I began to understand that they meant well and in fact I could even see how I had benefited from their efforts. These days I would probably feel more in common with Christian monastics than with people who believe that money brings happiness. I would still totally disagree with the doctrines of Christianity, with its notions of sin and punishment and damnation. The point I am making here is that we need to be able to love the individual whilst attacking the views and doctrines. It is best to identify people as people, as individuals, as human beings rather than in terms of their beliefs or what they do. It is not that someone is a Christian or a Buddhist or a Muslim, but rather that they are a human being who lives by certain principles and holds certain beliefs. If we identify people solely in terms of some group of other, we risk losing sight of their individuality and even of their humanity.

The art of disagreement is to make a distinction between the person, the human being and their views. To do otherwise is to fix them and to fix ourselves in a way that is not helpful. We are not our views. We are not Buddhists. We are much more than that and eventually we will realise that we are much more than that. That is when we will know that the Dharma is a raft to ferry us across the sea of ignorance to the shores of Wisdom. Wisdom itself, Enlightenment, Nirvana is something vast and ineffable, to be experienced, not to be explained. As Sangharakshita puts it in his commentary on the Heart Sutra ,

“if you want to develop - if your goal is Perfect Wisdom well, you have to go beyond Buddhism. In reality, you have to realise, there is no such thing as Buddhism. Buddhism is only a raft to take you to the other shore; then it must be abandoned. It is only a finger pointing to the moon.” “There is nothing that hinders you in your search for reality so much as that which is there to help you, namely religion. What should be a means to an end is so easily taken for the end itself.” (5)

In the same way then as we are not Buddhists, not just Buddhists, so others are not just Christians or Muslims or materialists. There are fathomless depths to human beings. There are vast potentialities in all individuals, like unmined gold or diamonds, like hidden treasure and we should try to remember this rather than just identify people with the froth and fume of their views. This is the art of disagreement, the art of tolerance.

So far I have been speaking mainly in terms of tolerance towards those whose views we disagree with or find repulsive. There is also tolerance to be exercised towards those who are simply different from us. Here tolerance has nothing to do with disagreement, but is simply the practice of metta. We may not find it easy to co-exist with people who are very different from us. We may not even like them. The difference may be cultural or temperamental or even just in terms of lifestyle. However, we need to go beyond our likes and dislikes and relate to others on a more basic individual level. You do not have to like someone in order to feel metta towards them. You can have a consistent attitude of goodwill towards someone even if you do not like them. It is easier if you do like them of course. Likes and dislikes are irrelevancies in the spiritual life and we need to strive to get beyond them to something more substantial. Often the difficulty we experience with others who are different from us stems from a tendency to make instant judgments or even to prejudge. So we have certain fixed ideas about people who dress in a particular way, or people of a particular nationality, or people of a particular skin colour, or people of a particular age and we bring those ideas and pre-judgments to our encounters, to stand between us and the other individual. This is very common and often we do not even know that we are doing it. The solution to this is to try to communicate with individuals as individuals and to try to suspend our usual preconceived ideas. The person in front of us is not young or old, the person in front of us is not white or black, the person in front of us is not Irish or English or Indian, the person in front of us is unique, unrepeatable and therefore not what we think they are. They are unique and therefore very interesting, if we take the trouble to discover them. We too, of course, are unique and therefore very interesting, if we take the trouble to discover ourselves. Tolerance, whether it is towards those with whom we disagree on fundamental principles or simply those who are different from us, is a matter of seeing people as individual human beings and trying to relate to them from a basis of goodwill.

There is a story at the beginning of the Pali Canon, even before the Buddha outlines all the possible wrong views, where he tells the disciples how to relate to people who may say bad things about him or the Order and also how to relate to those who say good things about him or the Order. The story takes place on the road from Rajagaha to Nalanda. The Buddha is going along the road with about five hundred disciples and following along behind is a man called Suppiya, with his disciple Brahmadatta. Now, Suppiya doesn't like the Buddha or his disciples and he is making all sorts of disparaging remarks about the Buddha and the Order. His disciple does not agree with him as it happens and is defending the Buddha and praising him. When the Buddha and his disciples stop to rest, Suppiya and Brahmadatta stop too and they carry on their discussion. Later some of the Buddha’s disciples tell the Buddha about the exchange that had taken place between Suppiya and his disciple Brahmadatta and the Buddha says,

“Bhikkhus, if outsiders should speak against me, or against the Dharma, or against the Sangha, you should not on that account either bear malice, or suffer heart-burning, or feel ill-will. If you, on that account should be angry or hurt, that would stand in the way of your own self conquest. If, when others speak against us, you feel angry at that, and displeased, would you then be able to judge how far that speech of theirs is well said or ill? ‘That would not be so, Sir.’

But when outsiders speak in dispraise of me, or of the Dharma, or of the Sangha, you should unravel what is false and point out what is wrong, saying: "For this or that reason this is not the fact, that is not so, such a thing is not found among us, is not in us." But also, Bhikkhus, if outsiders should speak in praise of me, in praise of the Dharma, in praise of the Sangha, you should not, on that account, be filled with pleasure or gladness, or be lifted up in heart. Were you to be so that also would stand in the way of your self conquest. When outsiders speak in praise of me, or of the Dharma, or of the Sangha, you should acknowledge what is right to be the fact, saying: "For this or that reason this is the fact, that is so, such a thing is found among us, is in us” (6)

The Buddha is saying is that the important thing is the truth. If others praise you or criticise you , your interest in it should be to see whether it is true or not and to respond accordingly. This is another perspective on the art of disagreement or the art of tolerance. We need to be concerned to discover the truth and proclaim the truth. Attack falsehood and wrong views and praise and encourage the truth and right view wherever you see it. The truth is the essential thing. The truth is the seed of Wisdom and the attitude of goodwill with which we uphold it is the seed of Compassion. Our task is to nurture the seeds of Wisdom and Compassion. We are not concerned to mete out punishment or reward, but to encourage skilfulness in ourselves and others. We are concerned to nurture and encourage whatever leads to the development of higher states of consciousness and an understanding of the mutually interpenetrating nature of human consciousness. It may be some time before we are sufficiently clear ourselves to be able to help other people to clarify their thinking. We may need to spend some years discovering and clarifying our own wrong views before we can be helpful to others who are the victims of wrong views. But nevertheless, the are some basic truths which we can know from our own experience such as ‘not by hatred are hatreds ever pacified’ and these basic truths we can uphold.

I mentioned earlier the need for us to have patience towards ourselves and to forgive ourselves for our imperfections. We also need to exercise tolerance towards ourselves. This does not mean that we approve of our own unskilful behaviour. We need to disapprove of what is unskilful in our behaviour or thoughts or speech. In other words we can, as it were, disagree with ourselves. At the same time we need to maintain feelings of metta towards ourselves, We can disapprove of our own unskilfulness without having to undermine ourselves, or think of ourselves as worthless or be angry with ourselves. This is what I mean by being tolerant to ourselves. Sometimes people acknowledge that they've done wrong and go on to completely negate themselves as if there were nothing of value in themselves. That is intolerance. Sometimes people acknowledge that they've done wrong and say blithely, "Oh, that’s me, that’s the way I am, I can’t help it." That is indulgence. The Buddhist attitude of metta lies between these extremes of intolerance and indulgence. It is the ability to acknowledge unskilfulness, while at the same time maintaining a broader perspective on ourselves.

As we progress on the spiritual path we may experience conflict within ourselves. It is as if part of us wants to lead the spiritual life and meditate and study and so on and another part of us doesn't want to have anything to do with it, would rather go to the cinema, down the pub, watch telly and so on. I know I experienced tremendous conflict myself after I had been meditating for about two years. It was as if there was a war going on inside me and it was tearing me apart. This went on for about a year. The only way I found of dealing with it was to identify as distinctly as possible the two sides to the conflict, even name them and then get them into some sort of dialogue. I carried out this dialogue in writing and with friends so as to objectify it. This proved successful in the end and the conflict abated. In order to progress I had to allow into consciousness, aspects of myself which didn't seem to be on the spiritual path. Paradoxically, when I did become more conscious in this way, I was in fact more on the spiritual path than ever. It was perhaps more a case of difference than disagreement. In other words, even within our own psyche the may be different approaches to the Dharma and we have to extend metta to them all, not try to destroy some. We cannot progress spiritually by denying who we are. Everything must be brought into consciousness and transformed by the warmth of awareness and metta.

At the beginning I said that tolerance has been a hallmark of Buddhism throughout its history. Although there are many different schools of Buddhism, there is not the same clear distinction between them as say between different sects of Christianity. Often monks from different schools have shared monasteries and revered each others teachers. The Dalai Lama for instance belongs to the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism but is revered by all Tibetan Buddhists. Here is a story from the Tibetan tradition which illustrates very well the Buddhist attitude of tolerance. The story is about Pakpa who was the leader of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism in the 13th century C. E. and who is credited with having converted the Mongols. I will quote from Tibetan Buddhism by Sangharakshita. Speaking about Pakpa, he says,

“ This celebrated Sakya leader was the guru of the even more famous Kublai Khan, who at the time ruled not only China, but also the whole of Central Asia and even parts of the West. Kublai Khan was apparently very grateful for the spiritual instruction and inspiration which Pakpa had given him, and very devoted to the Sakya School. One day he proposed to Pakpa that he should make a law compelling all the people of Tibet to give up the other traditions and follow only the teaching of the Sakya School. Such was Kublai Khan’s enthusiasm.

……………….Pakpa ……. dissuaded Kublai Khan from making such a law. Such a law, he said, would not be in accordance with the Dharma. In effect Pakpa was saying that the other Buddhists of Tibet, the non-Sakyapas, should be free to follow whatever school they wished. There must be no compulsion, no coercion. This is, in fact, the Buddhist tradition, and it is very much the attitude of Tibetan Buddhists. They are very devoted to their own form of Buddhism; they believe in it, and follow it wholeheartedly. But at the same time they respect other traditions. Rarely is there any attempt to coerce anybody into a particular school. This is indeed the attitude of Buddhists throughout the East. They are generally very tolerant, whether towards other forms of Buddhism or other religions.” (7)

The practice of tolerance, and of patience and forgiveness has to be underpinned by a strong conviction of the value of these virtues. That conviction grows in us to the extent that we are receptive to the teaching and guidance of the great spiritual leaders of humanity.

Notes:

1. Sangharakshita (translator), The Dhammapada, Windhorse 2001, p.14
2. Brian Keenan, An Evil Cradling, Vintage, London 1993, p.223
3. Sangharakshita, The Ten Pillars of Buddhism, Windhorse, Glasgow 1989,p.62
4. Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, Wordsworth Editions 1993, p.222
5. Sangharakshita,Wisdom Beyond Words, Windhorse 1993,p.30
6. Dialogues of the Buddha, trans. T.W. Rhys Davids, Pali Text Society 1973, p.2
7. Sangharakshita, Tibetan Buddhism, Windhorse 1996, p.40