Buddhism

‘Simplicity is important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have is vital. Many are making a great effort to control external things – like arms control. But without being able to control inner things, how can you control external arms? Real arms control is to control anger.

‘Now I am talking as a human being, not as a Buddhist. This I think is most important, because ideology and religion are for human beings, not the other way round. They are secondary. Emphasis should be on humanity.

‘My religion is very simple – my religion is kindness.

‘There is so much effort spent on external matters, like space travel. But there is still quite a big area of inner space left to explore. And it’s not so expensive!

‘People think patience is weakness. But I think not. Anger comes from fear, and fear from weakness. So, if you have strength then you have more courage. This is where patience comes from.

‘Deep down we must have real affection for each other, a clear recognition of our shared humanity. At the same time, we must accept all ideologies and systems as a means of solving humanity’s problems.’ – The Dalai Lama, Kindness, Clarity and Insight, quoted in Resurgence, Issue 123, July/August 1987, p23)

Nothing abides: no moment, no feeling, no thought, no person. (This is self-evidently true, at least in the long term, because everybody dies.) However, there are little deaths and new beginnings throughout life – at every moment, in fact. Change is inevitable and necessary; change is the condition of impermanence; impermanence prevents the possibility of anything abiding. This description is neither happy nor sad, optimistic nor pessimistic; from a Buddhist viewpoint it is a true analysis, the analysis of the one who has an enlightened view and sees clearly.

Beyond this maya (the repeated movement of creativity and destruction) lie peace and happiness, untouched by death and rebirth (which are simply moments of moments of momentous change in the samsaric cycle, equivalent to the submersion of continents and the arising of new species). The fact that we cannot see what lies beyond is attributable only to our own ignorance and lack of sight or wisdom, which cling to the self as though it were an immutable object. Ignorance is part of that self, its creator in fact. Over time, it can endure no more than a rock in a stream, leaf in the wind, a pebble on the beach, or a cloud in the sky. Our myopic vision, extending from birth to death, is incapable of conceiving of this, and so invents the concept of a soul to ensure our eternity. But such an invention merely seals our fate. And far beyond this lies the happiness of the Buddha.