and to ponder longer on ‘How come’ before deciding on a change to the game plan. Buddhism supports and guides this enquiry into the ‘big questions’. In fact it encourages you to make the enquiry more rigorous and relentless than you might have thought possible. It holds out the promise of a change, perhaps even a radical transformation, in the way you experience life, and the ease and effectiveness with which you manage your affairs. But the price of this is unswerving honesty – especially when the enquiry is getting rather too close for comfort to our cherished beliefs and attitudes that are taken for granted – and also the willingness to keep at it when it seems pointless or unproductive.
One of the biggest misapprehensions about Buddhism is that it is an escape from life, either into a quiet fatalism or into the safety of mental contemplation. Nothing could be further from the truth. The enquiry is no mere intellectual exercise, with painful realities kept nicely at a distance. Rather it involves a continual rubbing of your nose in the everyday messes of your own devising, so that you actually learn from your experience. The author of a recent academic book about Zen Buddhism, T.P. Kasulis, describes his meeting with a Japanese Master.
“You have asked permission to practise Zen meditation in this temple, but tell me: what is Zen?” inquired the Master. After some hesitation and embarrassed smiling, I said something about Zen’s being a way of life rather than a set of dogmas. Laughter filled the tatami-matted reception room. “Everyone comes here to study Zen, but none of them knows what Zen is. Zen is knowing thyself. You are a Western philosopher and know of Socrates’ quest. Did you assume Zen would be something different?”
If we do not have to travel East to tatami-matted rooms, neither do we have to go back to the Greeks. Here is a character in one of Dick Francis’s novels, The Danger, talking:
“To be logical you have to dig up and face your own hidden motives and emotions, and of course they’re hidden precisely because you don’t want to face them. So ... um ... it’s easier to let your basement feelings run the upper storeys, so to speak, and the result is rape, quarrels, love, jobs, opinions, anorexia, philanthropy ... almost anything you can think of. I just like to know what’s going on down there, to pick out why I truly want to do things, that’s all. Then I can do them or not. Whichever.”
He looked at me consideringly. “Self-analysis ... did you study it?”
“No. Lived it. Like everyone does.”
He smiled faintly. “At what age?”
“Well ... from the beginning. I mean, I can’t remember not doing it. Digging into my own true motives. Knowing in one’s heart of hearts. Facing the shameful things ... the discreditable impulses ... Awful, really.”
The more common attitude was well expressed by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in one of their sketches. Moore was interviewing Cook about his disastrous attempt to start up a restaurant in the middle of Dartmoor (serving, as I recall, only two dishes – Frog à la Peche, and Peche à la Frog, both equally disgusting). He asked whether Peter Cook thought he had learnt from his mistakes, to which Cook replied, ‘Oh yes. A tremendous amount. And I think I can safely say that I could repeat them almost perfectly.’
The discipline of Buddhism is to learn to look at yourself unflinchingly, especially when you don’t like what you see, so that you can gain practical insight into what makes you tick, and therefore a clearer sense of what it might be possible to do for the best. The effect of Buddhism is not only that of feeling more at peace with yourself, but a more intelligent and skilful involvement in life – career choices, social action, family disputes, whatever.
This brings up another quite common reaction to Buddhism: that its concern – some would say its obsession – with ‘suffering’ is depressing and unhealthy. Indeed, from the point of view of the more usual attempt to deal with trouble by trying to ignore it, it does look perverse. Why on earth would anyone want to dwell on the bad stuff? We cannot really answer this yet, for to do so we have to get right into the core of Buddhism. All we can say is that people discover for themselves that the attempt to avoid the hurt and pain of living is more trouble than it is worth, and that equanimity can be found by staring distress in the face, not by running away from it, or trying to do battle with it. The Buddhist emphasis on ‘suffering’ is not masochistic, but an unsentimental, clear-sighted, pragmatic response to the problem of how to be as happy as possible in a life that is bound to hit you from time to time.
Perhaps the best answer to the question, ‘Why Buddhism?’ is to point to its fruits – the qualities that naturally arise in someone who pursues the Buddhist path. There is a sense that the problems of life are dealt with more smoothly than before. One is less thrown by unforeseen or unwanted events. One takes things in one’s stride more easily. As the advertisement says, one is less inclined to make a drama out of a crisis. Somehow one’s peace of mind is more stable, so that, although things may be difficult from time to time, one does what one can without becoming distressed or confused. Inner strength grows, and one seems to have greater reserves to draw upon. At the same time a non-complacent self-acceptance builds up – one sees oneself more clearly, warts and all, but without the degree of debilitating self-criticism that might have been present previously. One develops the capacity to be self-aware without being self-conscious.
People who have been practising meditation for some time are recognizable by their poise, naturalness and spontaneity. They gain a non-defensive cheerfulness, a light touch in their dealings with others. Without making a big song and dance about it, they develop a gentle kindliness which is perceptive but not intrusive or sentimental. They are available without a need to ‘mother’ people. Yet this increased generosity of spirit is down to earth, it is unsanctimonious and certainly non-evangelical.
Also people become more clear in their thinking and their responding. The ‘right’ thing to do somehow emerges with greater obviousness. Someone once asked Bobby Fischer, the chess champion, how many moves he considered in his mind when it was his turn to play. He said: ‘Just one ... the right one.’ In the same way Buddhist practice seems to flower in a greater expertise in making real-life decisions. We could sum up all these effects perhaps by saying that Buddhism helps people to be at their best more of the time. All of us have periods when we are ‘on good form’, in which these qualities are available to us. But we are also only too aware of the other times, when we are ratty and muddled, mean-spirited and intolerant. Buddhism expands and consolidates our better natures.
What draws people to Buddhism?
It is in fact seeing the fruits of Buddhism in another person that attracts people more than anything else. Sometimes, as I said, people are interested in the ideas or the forms of meditation that they come across in conversation or in a book. But what transmutes this interest into some sort of commitment is usually an encounter with a human being who seems actually to embody the teachings. There is a feeling of being drawn, not so much by what they say as by who they are – by a sense of their being at peace with themselves, or of their ability to cut through a difficult situation with an enviable mixture of clarity and tact. Now of course it is not only Buddhists who have this ease and grace; everybody, I am sure, has memories of ‘unforgettable characters’ – a teacher, perhaps, or an old person with whom you had a special relationship as a child, or maybe even just a friend of a friend whom you met at a party or in the pub