..续本文上一页on the view of self

　　 Can it be that this human body, with its conditioning process, simply lands on us fortuitously in a universal system that is beyond our control

　　We live in a universe that is a mystery to us. We can only wonder about it. We can intuit and gaze at the universe, but we cannot put it into a little capsule. We cannot make it into something in our mind. Therefore, materialistic tendencies in our minds encourage us not to even ask those questions. Or else these tendencies make us interpret all life”s experience in the realm of logic or reason, based on the values of materialism and empirical science.

　　The Awakening Experience

　　Buddhism points to the universal or common experience of all sentient beings, that of suffering. It also makes a statement about the way out of suffering. Suffering is the awakening experience. When we suffer we begin to ask the questions. We tend to look, investigate, wonder, try to find out.

　　In the story of Prince Siddhattha (the name of the Buddha before he was enlightened) we hear of his life as a prince in an environment where there was only pleasure, beauty, comfort, social advantages - all the best life could offer. Then, as the legend goes, at the age of 29, Siddhattha left the palace to look outside, and he became aware of the messengers of old age, sickness and death.

　　Now one might say that he must have known about old age, sickness and death before the age of 29. In our way of thinking, it is quite obvious to us from an early age that everyone gets old, gets sick, and dies. However, this was something that the prince was merely aware of as a fact. It was something that did not awaken his mind until he reached the age of 29.

　　Similarly, we can live our lives, here in England, and we can assume that everything is all right, and even the unhappiness or the disappointments that we might normally experience may not necessarily awaken us. We may wonder about them a bit, but there are so many opportunities to not look at it, to not notice. It”s easy to blame our unhappiness on others, isn”t it

　　 We can blame it on the government, on our mother and father, on friends or enemies, on external forces. But the awakening of the mind to old age, sickness and death happens when we realise that it is going to happen to us. And that realisation comes not just as an abstract idea but as a real gut feeling, a real insight that this is what happens to all human beings. What is born gets old, deg enerates, and dies.

　　The fourth messenger that the Buddha saw was a samana. A samana is a monk, or a religious seeker, someone who is devoted solely to the pursuit of the ultimate reality, the truth. The samana, as portrayed in the legend, was a shaven-headed monk wearing a robe.

　　These are the four messengers in Buddhist symbolism: old age, sickness, death, and the samana. They signify the awakening of the human mind to a religious goal, to that aspiration of the human heart towards realising the ultimate reality, which is freedom from all delusion and suffering.

　　Buddhist Practice

　　Sometimes modern attitudes towards Buddhist meditation tend to portray it as leaving the world and developing a very concentrated state of mind dependent upon carefully controlled conditions. So in the United States and in other countries where Buddhist meditation is becoming increasingly popular, people tend to develop strong views about it being a concentrated state of mind in which technique and control are very important.

　　This type of technique is all well and good, but if you begin to develop the reflective capacities of your mind then it is not always necessary, not even advisable to spend your time trying to refine your mind to where anything coarse or unpleasant is suppressed. It”s better to open the mind to its f…

《Is Buddhism A Religion

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