..续本文上一页not pursue or feed that memory pattern is a way of ending the whole sense of alienation and separation.
The monastery I come from has about fifty people resident, often another fifty on retreat and maybe another hundred for a meal. So it”s a pretty big outfit. Sometimes you get a clique of whingers. They”re usually the behind the woodshed smoker types, complaining that the Abbot talks too much or that the monks took all the cakes again. They usually walk out the door and are never seen again. That”s not how you form community.
When one hears that kind of pisive speech, maybe we can listen without buying into it. We can say ”yeah it sounds like you”ve got a problem”. To disagree is fine but we want to avoid feeding that continual tendency of the human mind to become negative.
To take responsibility in community for right speech is again one of these mirrors that the Buddha”s teaching is presenting to us. Right speech is speech which is in concord, brings harmony, is truthful, beautiful and according to Dhamma. Wrong speech is speech which is pisive, untruthful, ugly, cruel, harsh or swearing and speech which is just foolish. If we”re really working with Buddhism as a spiritual teaching then when our speech enters into disharmony and pisiveness we”ll awaken to that because we”re taking this training seriously. We”ll say ”why do I need to do that
Why do I need to create disharmony
” Inherent in this is a joyous awakening to the peacefulness of relating and to intimacy. Intimacy isn”t just about a relationship between two people. It”s more than that. It”s about non-alienation with and affection for all sentient beings. It”s not an easy thing to do but that noble aspiration is worth it because it does bring joy. Not the joy of consumerism or the easy way out. It”s a deeper sense of nobility in the human heart.
Community takes a lot of work. I”ve lived in community for 25 years and the image Ajahn Sumedho uses is of fifty rough green stones in one of these polishing machines. They come out all nice and shiny and you can buy them in the shop. The process is grinding. It”s like being with someone you find irksome and with whom it”s ok to disagree, but taking responsibility for that. Or like being with someone you find intimidating and working with that. It is a kind of a grinding which requires time, stability and commitment.
We have to ask ourselves why there is so much depression and suicide in our society. For me it seems the problem is that we don”t have community and that we don”t relate in a non-alienating way. We relate in a competitive way. We cut the trees down in order to use the land. We become alienated from our own bodies and they become bloated, overfed things that we have to carry around. What is a body
It is one of the environments we live in. What does it feel like
What kind of food does it need
A life of affection for your community of emotional beings, for what you”re putting into your body and into your mind is a more complete way of living your life.
But what is the affectionate relationship to the emotions
Even within a spiritual practice we can have a cruel self hating attitude towards the very real difficulties that we face. We expect ourselves to love, or forgive. The spiritual part of community also includes an affectionate participation in one”s own inner being and an understanding of one”s own emotions. Within that inner affection or inner awareness one sees all kinds of limitations. One sees that one does resent, get angry and have fears.
This is a more complete, integrated way of living your life. A life lived for a weekend of golf doesn”t make sense to me. To push one”s body hard in some way and then have a few hours of pleasure a week seems to me to be disassociated and alienated from life. But a life of immediacy where we”re living moment by moment in this kind of affectionate and caring way makes a lot of sense and has very good results.
This can lend a new quality to one”s existence, because the process of existence is just as important as any other goal we might have. The doing is important because the doing involves affection for all the little things.
If the means are right the ends will be right. If the way I”m living this moment now is not conjoined with affection then how can I have affection later on
If my spiritual contemplations are bound by self hatred and self judgment and put downs of myself and all that, how can there be affectionate love at the end of the road
There can”t be. It just doesn”t work. The law of karma doesn”t work that way. So this life of Buddhism is a life of responsibility, maturity and affection. A life of caring for oneself and for one”s community. I wish you well in your own spiritual journey and I hope this place is helpful for you in this way of developing community in your own spiritual life. Thank you for your attention.
《Affectionate Living》全文阅读结束。