Buddhism: having a sanguine attitude

by Jagath Asoka

(July 19, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is un-Buddhist thing to accept even the teachings of the Buddha out of devotion. An argy-bargy of Buddhism that I have with my trusted friends around a dinner table is not an eristic argument; all disputants attain their objective in an open-hearted discussion. Just like most of you, I did not choose my religion. People categorize me as a Buddhist, because I was reared by a family who called themselves Buddhists. I am not an erudite scholar on Buddhism; I do not know a single Buddhist sutra, let alone the entire Tripitaka, the present Pali Canon or the voluminous Buddhist scriptures which can take up several selves in a library; I do not follow a charismatic leader for motivation or advice; instead, I rely on my own failures and efforts. To those who say that I am not qualified and have not earned the right to write about Buddhism, I would say that I agree with all of you wholeheartedly; however, I cannot help being opinionated, because that is my nature, and I have accepted my cantankerous nature and have found peace with my carnivorous, lecherous desires, which I did not choose. But I know one thing: I can choose my attitude. This is also the first thing that people would notice when they meet me for the first time. The Buddha talked about attitude. As far as I am concerned, the eight-fold path that the Buddha talked about, which includes having the right attitude in life, is actually a single path with eight steps. The first step of this path is right attitude.

People often use hackneyed statements when they talk about Buddhism. I do not go through life with a namby-pamby attitude thinking that life is not worth living, that all life is sorrowful all the time, and that life has no meaning because we all die in the end. To say that life is always sorrowful is childish, and it is irksome when supposedly intelligent people make such asinine statements. I know that there are people who feel bored with their mundane existence, find their existence unbearable. I know that there are people who believe that achieving nirvana will solve this problem of existence; I have heard of Buddhist monks who committed suicide after attaining nirvana, so it seems like attaining nirvana did not solve the problem of uneasiness of existence. I know a few things from my own experience: as long as compassion is the burning point my life, kindness is the driving force of my soul; and gentleness is the rhythm of my heart, I will be fine. To see beauty in impermanence, imperfection, and decay, all I have to do is just adjust my attitude. I have not yet met a single person who has achieved nirvana; however, once I met a woman who claimed that she would achieve nirvana in two weeks. Well, I think that I have a better chance of seeing a pregnant man before I see a person who has achieved nirvana—a person having a constant state of mind that is not compelled by desire, fear, or social obligations.

When I think of attitude, an interview conducted by Larry King comes to my mind. On 26 December 2006, the entire world was shaken by a tsunami which took more than 200, 000 lives without any discrimination. During this devastation, Larry King invited spiritual leaders and asked them to explain this merciless act according to their faith and religion. Most of the answers were somewhat similar, except the answer that was given by the Buddhist monk— Bhante Gunaratana. I cannot remember his exact words, but his message was very simple: The tsunami was an act of nature, which we cannot control; the only thing that we can do is to adjust our attitude toward what has happened in order to get through the unfathomable devastation. In other words, if the entire world is covered with broken glass, all we can do is to cover our feet to protect ourselves.

When we are surrounded by pain, sickness, injustice, and cruelty, all of us easily fall into despair, and we have to struggle with ourselves to convince ourselves that life is worth living to its fullest. Did Siddhartha lose his ability to live with the unpalatable, unavoidable facts of life and fell into deep despair and depression, or was he fed up with domesticity, yet believed that there was a solution to this uneasiness of existence. Our earthly fragile life, which is always destined to decay, is just a part of the whole picture. Buddhism does not teach us to say no to certain parts of our lives, but to say yes to all of it, including pain, sickness, death, injustice, brutality, stupidity, vulgarity, and cruelty. It is about finding peace of mind in this incongruous mixture of suffering and happiness, where we cannot have one without the other. Buddhism is not about leaving this mundane life and finding peace in a cave in the Himalayas. There is only one place to find peace and immunity: in the midst of life’s suffering.

Life is not always honky-dory. With right attitude, we can live with peace of mind under various conditions; when someone throws cow dung at you, use it as fertilizer to grow a mango tree and enjoy the sweat mangoes. Life is sorrowful sometimes, yet we can always choose to laugh at life and its miseries. I think that one can live one’s life as a Buddhist without knowing a single word uttered by the Buddha; one can identify with the suffering of Jesus Christ without subscribing to the Nicene Creed; one can respect and surrender to the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnificent nature of this universe without believing in God.

There is one Buddhist story that expresses my attitude towards life. Once when a tiger was chasing a man, out of desperation, just before the tiger was about to catch him, the man jumped over a precipice that was on his path. As he was falling down, he reached out and grabbed on to a bush. When he looked down he was terrified. At the bottom of the abyss, there was a venomous snake. When he looked up, he saw the tiger still waiting to devour him. When he looked to his left, he saw two mice, chewing the roots of the bush. When he looked to his right, he saw a honeycomb, dripping honey. Surrounded by imminent death, he still managed to put his tongue out and lick the honey.

Since I cannot escape from privation and suffering, I am going to enjoy this honey, and I will find peace of mind between the tiger and the snake; I hope you would do the same. Whether you agree with me or not, I sincerely think, all of us are Buddhists after all.