by an experience of distress that seems to open their eyes to the great weight of ‘suffering’, as the Buddhists call it, that the world contains. The author of No Boundary, Ken Wilber, suggests that unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life are not signs of inadequacy or mental illness, but of a growing intelligence,
a special intelligence usually buried under the immense weight of social shams. A person who is beginning to sense the suffering of life is, at the same time, beginning to awaken to deeper realities, truer realities. For suffering smashes to pieces the complacency of our normal fictions about reality, and forces us to become alive in a special sense – to see carefully, to feel deeply, to touch ourselves and our worlds in ways we have heretofore avoided … It is only through all manner of numbing compensations, distractions and enchantments that we agree not to question the root cause of our [troubles] ... But sooner or later, if we are not rendered totally insensitive, our defensive compensations begin to fail in their soothing and concealing purpose and, as a consequence, we begin to suffer.
For James the process started while he was still at school; for Mary it was her father’s death; for Theresa the unhappiness and depression of her marriage. For some people it is not until they themselves are ill, or old, or close to death, that the questioning begins to start. For many it is some kind of personal brush with distress that cannot, this time, be shrugged off.
It is interesting that it is precisely this dual impetus – waking up to suffering, and encountering someone who seems to deal with it better than we do – that got the Buddha himself started on the intense six or seven years of enquiry that ended with his ‘enlightenment’ under the bodhi tree at Bodhgaya in Northern India, and his discovery of the insights that now form the heart of all Buddhist teaching. According to the myth of Buddha’s life, he was born into a rich family to a father who was determined to shield him from any possible problems or unhappiness. He grew up with every conceivable luxury, and it seemed that his father’s plans were working out well until, one day when Buddha was out in the town, he saw a sick person, lying uncared for in the street, an old person, and a dead body, and these suddenly brought home to him the existence and the inevitability of suffering. But on one of his jaunts he also met a wandering monk, whose inner peace in the face of all this unhappiness impressed him greatly, and inspired him to set out on his quest to find the deepest, most lasting solution he could to the problem of suffering. It is partly the fact that there are people around today, Western as well as Eastern and female as well as male, who appear in some subtle way to have ‘cracked it’, just as Buddha did, that accounts for Buddhism’s growing appeal.
These stories illustrate a number of themes that we shall be exploring in more detail as we go along. What I would like to pick up now are the pointers to why Buddhism seems to many people to be the most timely of the traditional religions
Perhaps the most obvious reason for its appeal is that it actually seems to work. People can feel its benefits in themselves, in friends and family members who have been practising, and most strikingly, as we have seen, in the Buddhist monks and teachers that have inspired them. It is mundane and practically helpful. In fact Buddhism is uniquely equipped to meet the particular anxieties and attitudes of the times. Our general feeling of insecurity is partly due to the incredible rate of change in the world – change in values and lifestyles as well as in technology and forms of employment – and change is one of Buddhism’s most central concepts. You could almost say that how to handle change is precisely what Buddhism teaches. It is when personal beliefs and philosophies are weak and conflicting that Buddhism really comes into its own. In more traditional, settled times and cultures, it is only a few unusual individuals who endeavour to peck their way out of a substantial shell of routine ways of thinking and behaving. But in our times the certainties are few and far between, the shell is already cracking, and attempts by traditionalists to keep asserting that the old shell is still valid do not seem, to many people, to be enough. Like it or not, many of us in the Western world are in the pecking business, puzzled about how to live, about how to bring up children, about what it means to be a good son or daughter, about what constitutes maturity, about our responsibilities to the earth, about what occupations are worthwhile, and a host of other such questions that seem to be pressing but difficult. And Buddhism is at hand with teachings and techniques custom-built to help us chip away at old assumptions and present confusions until we see clearly and unequivocally what matters most, and an intuitive wisdom begins to emerge and guide us.
We also live in a rather individualistic age, when the sense of autonomy, of being on our own, of having to make it on our own, is strong. The major concern of the times is with personal and local happiness, with ourselves and the few people close to us, and Buddhism looks from the outside as if it is again tailor-made to offer that personal salvation. It buys in to the preoccupation with the individual and his or her well-being. Buddhism does not tell you to pull your socks up and be nicer to everybody, nor does it wag a stern finger at you when you behave badly or thoughtlessly. The fundamental problem in Buddhism is not of sin, but of delusion, and the way forward is therefore not through the uncomfortable shove that guilt is supposed to provide, but through insight. So the initial sense is of working on yourself for yourself.
It would be a big mistake, though, to suppose, as some critics do, that because Buddhism starts with oneself, it also stops there. Far from it. Buddhism tells you that if you work at it you will be happier and kinder. Being a ‘good person’ is not a matter of denying yourself but of knowing yourself, and the better, the more clearly, you know yourself, the more everybody wins. Thus although many people are drawn to Buddhism for ‘selfish’ reasons, they discover that the package deal on offer includes a greater sense of natural concern for others, as well as the anticipated peace of mind. (In fact the emphasis of different schools of Buddhism is somewhat different in this regard – some stress the personal and some the more social benefits – but at root the development of equanimity and magnanimity must go hand in hand.)
The fact the Buddhism helps people to become kinder as well as more peaceful is not just a fortunate by-product, however. If the first question that drives the search which may lead to Buddhism is, ‘How can I be happier?’, there is a second one just behind it, ‘How can I be helpful? How can I lead a life that is not only happy but worthwhile as well?’ People who are neither terminally cynical, nor suffering from acute ‘compassion fatigue’, are aware of the suffering and distress in the world, but at a loss as to how to respond to it. There is so much of it, the result of stupidity, cruelty, madness or bad luck, in the papers and on the TV every day, that it seems impossible to know where to start – especially when one’s resources are stretched as it is, holding one’s own life together. There is Band Aid and Oxfam, Save the Children and Help the Aged, telethons and little envelopes in the letter box. There are causes to give one’s time to as well as one’s money: Fight the Cuts, Save the Seals, Rebuild the Church Tower, Campaign for Anti-Racism or Back to Basics in the local school … The list of ways to be helpful, to promote one’s ideals, is endless and intimidating. Confused about what to do for the best, it is small wonder that we tend to retreat from these impossible decisions into issues that seem somewhat more manageable – what to give Sam for her birthday, or whether we would be less tense if we moved out of London.
Because Buddhism works, it offers us not only teachings and practices, but also the example of people who seem more cool, calm and collected than we are. Such people, as we have seen, often provide the stimulus for getting more involved with Buddhism; but they also constitute a continuing resource. We have a chance to learn from who they are, from how they deal with everyday life, and to pick up some of their skill at living in the time-honoured fashion of the apprentice – by watching them at work. In some ways, though, this method of
