Thinking yourself a Buddhist
Here are some of my reflections about what it means to think yourself a Buddhist that arose out of thinking abut the second week of the Foundation Course.
Thinking about it, it begins to be strange that we even talk of 'thinking yourself a Buddhist'. Buddhism is not an 'ism' even though it looks like one. Buddhism is not something you can think. It is not a concept. Yet we say 'I think of myself as a Buddhist'. What kind of a thought is involved when you 'think' of yourself as a Buddhist? As it happens there is no traditional expression for what we mean by the word 'Buddhist'. Just as there is no 'ism' to it. There cannot be a sense of accepting a set of ideas and beliefs. Accepting a set beliefs does not make you a Buddhist.
You have to do more than just accept something. There's more to it than thinking, or even feeling, it looks like we have to do some work on ourselves. Perhaps we could say that working on your mind in a skilful way, that's what makes you a Buddhist. But then, if you want to make your mind more skilful you have to agree on what is skilful! So a Buddhist accepts as skilful what he can find out the Buddha said was skilful. So we go on to test out the hypothesis in the sand-pit of our life. Actions have consequences, so, what consequences did my actions have? Do they confirm the beliefs? You accepted them for the purpose of testing them out, what is the result of the experiment?
Thinking yourself a Buddhist involves intuition, experience and reason. The role of intuition and experience means that it is more than just thinking that is involved. It involves the resources of the imagination. It also involves what you do with your body - but that takes us right on to ethics!
But let's come back to considering what it means to say that the Dharma is not a set of ideas. It doesn't seem to be a set of beliefs either. Then is it not a 'faith'? It does seem to be a set of practices. So can we say that it is not what you believe, but what you do makes you a Buddhist. And that's where thinking comes in. Thinking is an action, it is something that you do. And thinking in a certain way, thinking skilfully, is that something that starts to make you Buddhist? Perhaps you can say there's no becoming one one without some attempt at transformation. Sometimes we initiate that transformation by means of thought and that is where views and belief come in.
When you initiate the transformation of yourself by thinking, your thoughts sort themselves into a path long trod by many before you. Faith in Buddhism means to take on that path trod by others, and you take on the path by doing the practices. It's virtually tautological but I could say that you take on the path by following the path, and one of the ways of following the path is by means of thought, reflection, and what is called 'right view'.
More fundamentally it comes down to karma. Karma manifests as mind and manifests through mind. Mind transforms karma and karma transforms mind. Perhaps I could say they are together arising - pratitya samutpada. In fact it occurs to me that you could say 'Mind' could be considered as what you do. Mind is an attitude and attitude is a preparation for action. So we can say with Faust sitting in his study before his first encounter with Mephistopheles that what it all starts with is the deed: im Anfang war das Tat - 'In the beginning was the deed'.
If you act skilfully, that's mind. If you act unskilfully, that's mind too. Not only is it mind, but it's our world as well. Mind is there involved in any action that performs itself within that world and which helps to create, sustain or destroy it. The path is to take on the skilfulness given to you by understanding the link between mind and action. And it also follows that if you have total mind, you have total act. If you have total act, then you are totally behind your act in the world, so it had better be skilful!
With regard to reality, or how things are, what you have undertaken by your past actions shows up as the set of influences that are acting on how you live now. As the Tibetans say: 'If you want to know what you did in the past, look at how you are now. If you want to know how you will be in the future, look at yourself - what you are doing right now!'
Here are some of my reflections about what it means to think yourself a Buddhist that arose out of thinking abut the second week of the Foundation Course.
Thinking about it, it begins to be strange that we even talk of 'thinking yourself a Buddhist'. Buddhism is not an 'ism' even though it looks like one. Buddhism is not something you can think. It is not a concept. Yet we say 'I think of myself as a Buddhist'. What kind of a thought is involved when you 'think' of yourself as a Buddhist? As it happens there is no traditional expression for what we mean by the word 'Buddhist'. Just as there is no 'ism' to it. There cannot be a sense of accepting a set of ideas and beliefs. Accepting a set beliefs does not make you a Buddhist.
You have to do more than just accept something. There's more to it than thinking, or even feeling, it looks like we have to do some work on ourselves. Perhaps we could say that working on your mind in a skilful way, that's what makes you a Buddhist. But then, if you want to make your mind more skilful you have to agree on what is skilful! So a Buddhist accepts as skilful what he can find out the Buddha said was skilful. So we go on to test out the hypothesis in the sand-pit of our life. Actions have consequences, so, what consequences did my actions have? Do they confirm the beliefs? You accepted them for the purpose of testing them out, what is the result of the experiment?
Thinking yourself a Buddhist involves intuition, experience and reason. The role of intuition and experience means that it is more than just thinking that is involved. It involves the resources of the imagination. It also involves what you do with your body - but that takes us right on to ethics!
But let's come back to considering what it means to say that the Dharma is not a set of ideas. It doesn't seem to be a set of beliefs either. Then is it not a 'faith'? It does seem to be a set of practices. So can we say that it is not what you believe, but what you do makes you a Buddhist. And that's where thinking comes in. Thinking is an action, it is something that you do. And thinking in a certain way, thinking skilfully, is that something that starts to make you Buddhist? Perhaps you can say there's no becoming one one without some attempt at transformation. Sometimes we initiate that transformation by means of thought and that is where views and belief come in.
When you initiate the transformation of yourself by thinking, your thoughts sort themselves into a path long trod by many before you. Faith in Buddhism means to take on that path trod by others, and you take on the path by doing the practices. It's virtually tautological but I could say that you take on the path by following the path, and one of the ways of following the path is by means of thought, reflection, and what is called 'right view'.
More fundamentally it comes down to karma. Karma manifests as mind and manifests through mind. Mind transforms karma and karma transforms mind. Perhaps I could say they are together arising - pratitya samutpada. In fact it occurs to me that you could say 'Mind' could be considered as what you do. Mind is an attitude and attitude is a preparation for action. So we can say with Faust sitting in his study before his first encounter with Mephistopheles that what it all starts with is the deed: im Anfang war das Tat - 'In the beginning was the deed'.
If you act skilfully, that's mind. If you act unskilfully, that's mind too. Not only is it mind, but it's our world as well. Mind is there involved in any action that performs itself within that world and which helps to create, sustain or destroy it. The path is to take on the skilfulness given to you by understanding the link between mind and action. And it also follows that if you have total mind, you have total act. If you have total act, then you are totally behind your act in the world, so it had better be skilful!
With regard to reality, or how things are, what you have undertaken by your past actions shows up as the set of influences that are acting on how you live now. As the Tibetans say: 'If you want to know what you did in the past, look at how you are now. If you want to know how you will be in the future, look at yourself - what you are doing right now!'