Being Truly Human July 1998 Newsletter

A lecture given by Phiroz Mehta before H. M. Queen Juliana of the Netherlands at Appeldoorn on 29^th January 1954

In the Christian communion service, the blessing begins with these words:

May the Peace of God which passeth all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God.

Many centuries before Jesus, a Hindu prayer for peace ran thus:

May there be peace in Heaven… May there be peace on earth… May there be peace in Brahman, the Supreme… May there be peace in all… May that peace, real peace, be in me.

Who is the man who seeks the Peace of God? Surely, he who is the devotee, the lover of God, and he who is the wise man possessed of insight; and, above all, he who suffers with loving clear-sightedness, refusing to push aside or flee from the sorrow which lies at the heart of all sin, the sorrow which is the food of all who sow the seed of repeated death. And is it possible to escape the fact that the action, feeling and speech-thought of the multitudes is a grim holocaust to the Lord of Death, that it effectively shuts the Gates of Immortality, and that it enthrones tumult and banishes the Peace of God?

For look! The world around us is afflicted with wars and strikes, insecurity and misery. We see gigantic greeds and hellish hatreds between man and man. Our fellow humans sicken with anxiety and fear, or else are tormented by neurosis and frustration. In our own individual selves there is heartbreak and disillusionment, and there is the evil which we vainly try to keep secret. Everywhere sorrow eats away the heart of men and women lonely in the midst of huddled millions. We are poor in the midst of plenty; we are slaves pretending to be free men; we are fools stranded in the desert of knowledge. And all this is in spite of our conquest of nature and control over matter, our developing social justice, our growing humane and liberal outlook and behaviour.

We cannot deny some progress, for in the twentieth century we do see certain peoples whose way of life is the outcome of an evolutionary development through several centuries. This way of life displays the stability of a long respected and faithfully preserved tradition, as well as a degree of flexibility which allows for accommodation to the change which is necessitated by growth and by the passage of time. One may discern here a distinctive outlook on life, and significantly it is an outlook which is unstained by a forcibly imposed rigid ideology. But, by contrast, in this selfsame twentieth century, we have also witnessed the ravages wrought by the devilish imposition of the crude ideologies of half-witted megalomaniacs. In other words, we have seen the rule of the sword and the subsequent destruction of him who stoops to wield compulsive power, a destruction which unhappily involves millions in a senseless agony. We have seen evil strength destroy itself suicidally. How tragically foreboding then is the fact that man, the victim of his own sinful ignorance, still places his trust in power unredeemed by wise love!

Most of the learned ones of the world lay great stress on political or economic or social or other conditions as the causes of the world malaise. The vast masses of the world, prone to shirk certain responsibilities, look to others, to those in power, to produce the millennium for them. Schemes and plans are made, great organizations spring up and vast activities are afoot all over the world, all in the name of welfare, of happiness and of peace. And yet, peace is an exile, happiness is a fever and welfare is largely a reduction to comfortable animalhood and mechanical efficiency.

But if a wise man were to emphasize the fact that each person is himself the root cause of the world malaise, he is regarded with disfavour. If a truthful man were to declare that the main responsibility for peace lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of each and every one of us in the world, he is left deserted. And yet, St. Paul wrote:

Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap everlasting life.

Galatians VI.7 & 8

Jesus declared:

Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.

Matthew V. 18

And the Buddhist Dhammapada unequivocally taught:

By oneself alone is evil done, by oneself is one defiled; by oneself is evil avoided, by oneself is one purified; purity and impurity depend on oneself; no one can purify another.

165 or XII. 9

Each man, then, sows the seed and sustains the dark tangle of evil in the world, because evil is within himself; each man likewise sows the seed and nourishes the fair flower of good in the world by his own deliberate action. Since I myself am the doer of evil, it is necessary for me to see and to acknowledge that the devil confronts me each time I look into a mirror. The devil's domicile is not restricted but is universal, is not confined to the other fellow but is right within myself. If, however, this were the whole truth, there could be no possibility of salvation or peace. There is another factor: God. And God, also, is in me. I, the human person, am the battleground of the opposing tensions, the evil, symbolized by the devil, and the good which is the manifestation of God. The disquiet and turmoil produced within myself by these opposing tensions inevitably produce disquiet and evil in the world; and, simultaneously, the world condition inevitably affects me.

My world and I largely reflect each other. The world and I are not two unrelated entities but, together, constitute a continuously interacting, living whole. The world and I are responsible not only to each other but also for each other. Therefore, in reality, there is no problem whatsoever, whether I should devote myself to self-purification, for the sake of what is quite wrongly called my selfish, personal salvation, or whether I should work for great causes or for established institutions. Further, there is no problem whatsoever of reconciling religion and the good life with science and philosophy and the practical, worldly life. For in very truth there is only the Whole. My self-purification inevitably means that my environment is being changed for the better; my clarifying vision inevitably means that my fellows are helped to see the truth; my increasingly efficient and beautiful performance of all my worldly activities, provided such activities are not evil in themselves, inevitably means that my salvation is nearer at hand.

Thus I preserve my touch with Reality. I do not chase an attractive refinement, cloaking it under the name of an ideal, for that only binds me to limited selfhood; nor do I attempt to impose ideals on others, for that only drags them into my own net; nor do I frantically try to convert the world or save the unbeliever, for such action is but a remarkable demonstration of my own egoism and my lust for spiritual merit. But I must freely offer all I am to all the world, and freely share all I have with whosoever is willing to accept it. Thus I maintain my touch with Reality.

Now the problem which faces me, as indeed it faces every single person in the world, is that, having recognized the devil in me, what do I do with him? If I suppress him here, he springs out more triumphantly there. If I repress him, I suffer from neuroses and psychoses. If I give him free rein or pamper him, he runs riot. If I acknowledge defeat, I suffer the tortures of hell. If I constantly fight him, I make him stronger by such exercise and my own task more difficult. What, then, can I do with the devil?

I can transform him.

Again, this problem faces me: what do I do with God within me? Each time God within me is defeated, I am mortally wounded and, whether I acknowledge it or not, I am a miserable sinner. This is the secret evil which I vainly try to hide, as said earlier in this talk. Each time God shines out in me, I am happy and peaceful — but only temporarily, for there is something within which again obscures the light of God. And so, ordinarily, God in me remains a babe. What can I do with God within me?

I can make God in me grow to full stature.

Continued in part 2 and part 3

By Sylvia Swain

Continued from part 1

Mindfulness

Having established that the awakening of the mind is both the way and the goal, we must expect to hear much about mindfulness as we proceed through this book. It is important to understand that awareness needs to be applied beyond the simple paying of attention to material things. Many people and organizations in the West keep up very high standards of concentration, efficiency and technique, but in the religious life close attention to motivation is the criterion for the attainment of the purified mind.

If we are to understand the wisdom of the Dhammapada in the modern context, we need to look beyond and below the surface of the materialism and dependence on technology which has re-shaped our thinking, and to question our acceptance of extraverted materialism, both in public and in private life, which has almost unconsciously become the basis of our value judgements and our thinking processes. For example, our “unthought-out thought” passively gives consent to the asset-stripping of the planet, whereas “conscious”, mindful thought would point out that we are only custodians and not the owners at all.

This is only one example, and we can all add our own, but when greed is triggered, people are easily convinced. The important thing is not to follow the examples which clearly cause the problems but to turn our attention to the thoughts the Buddha had, when he too was confronted by all the suffering of his day, which stemmed from what he termed heedlessness. He observed that the causes of human suffering had three powerful sources. He called them the Three Fires, translated as desire or craving, hatred or aversion and delusion or ignorance.

This ignorance means not only that we are ignorant regarding others, their reality as distinct from our judgements of them, but that we are self-ignorant, living an inner delusion, whilst we are not sufficiently self-aware to be capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood, wholeness from partiality, either inwardly or by implication, in the outer world.

The dangers of ignorance are pointed out at the beginning of the book in verses 11 and 12:

Those who mistake the shadow for the substance, and the substance for the shadow, never arrive at Reality, but follow false aims.

Those who know the substance as the substance, and the shadow as the shadow arrive at Reality, and follow right aims.

The charge of ignorance comes as a shock to the modern mind, so clearly confident now in the ability of science to solve its problems of desire and aversion. For science, although excellent in its technology, is not moral but answers to demand, so that not only the traditional authority of religion to provide fundamental and spiritual explanations and remedies is being fast eroded, but moral values too are giving way to market forces.

So we need urgently to challenge the tacit assumption that to appease desire is the same as bringing an end to suffering or giving meaning to life. It so obviously is not doing so, since mental and emotional suffering are at an all-time high.

The mind that is continually self-seeking is not stable but, in reality, is out of communication with life and thus is out of communion as well. So, clearly, we need to return to our theme, which is, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought”. If we have hubris it is because we have inflated thoughts.

Inflation is a common problem in a society of high technology; the ego can inflate when it identifies with a powerful car or any technology that extends its normal fields of activity. Even higher education cannot pacify a mind which is distressed or unsteady.

There is an important difference between a well-stocked mind and a well-trained one. We may well stock our mind with all kinds of prejudice as well as knowledge, but only the “well-trained-mind”, which becomes modest and wise in the training process, can distinguish the true from the false. As verse 14 says:

As rain does not break into a well-thatched house, so craving does not break into a well-trained mind.

We all know the religious rules verbally and we know of the existence of good and evil, but in what vein do we know these things? Verse 136 says:

A fool does not know when he does evil, evil deeds consume him as by fire.

And verse 141 is a very interesting sidelight of the wrong thinking which the Buddha had to correct in his day, and which can easily be applied to today:

Not nakedness, nor matted hair, nor fasting, nor sleeping on the ground, neither rubbing the body with dust, nor sitting like an ascetic can purify a man who has not solved his doubts.

The Buddha taught only from experience — not hearsay. He had lived as an ascetic himself in the early days of his search for the truth, and later on when he taught about Nirvana. That too was from experience and so we can surely trust his words. Verse 145 is just another illustration of mindfulness in action:

Irrigators guide water, fletchers straighten arrows, carpenters bend wood, wise men shape themselves. As a fletcher straightens his arrow, so the wise man straightens his unsteady mind which is so hard to control.

He knew how the crooked becomes straight and how the unsteady mind can find peace. This brings us to the important question of how we are to change the tenor of our thoughts, to straighten the unsteady mind.

The history of countless centuries of human thought in the form of religion, philosophy or dogma has shown that even the high sounding ideologies have their hidden agendas and thus beget a very negative contraflow, leading to outer conflicts such as the ever-repeated succession of wars, which has dogged the whole history of man. On the individual scale too, even the most loyal adherents to an ethic find themselves caught up in doubts and intrusive thoughts of an unwanted nature. In Buddhism, it is not belief in anything, however laudable, which saves us, but experience in mindfulness. Who but the Buddha would have said, “Do not believe what I say because I say it [although he knew his words were true] but try these things out for yourselves”? Verse 243 makes this clear:

Ignorance is the worst stain of all, let the bhikkhu remove ignorance and be clean.

To the Buddha, belief, not being self-discovered, was still a form of ignorance, so we can only really benefit from his teaching by doing the work for ourselves. This is why Buddhism makes a clear distinction between the dishonest repression of thought, a denial of negative contents of the mind, and the active examination of them with a view to their transformation. Many religions advise control by will power alone, whereas Buddhism, which is psychologically based, aims not so much at the obedience of commandments as at the achievement of the remedying of ignorance, which is seen as a sickness of the mind to be cured. Tao Te Ching 71 says:

Knowing ignorance is strength.
Ignoring knowledge is sickness.
If one is sick of sickness, then one is not sick.
The sage is not sick because he is sick of sickness.
Therefore he is not sick.

Only mindfulness will give us sufficient knowledge of our sick mind to make us sick of it and thus to lead to the adoption of the hard, but necessary, mental exercises of the religious life. Without this honesty we can easily escape into self-satisfied justification. There are no quick ways to purify the mind, all sudden changes are only reversals of old ethics. Verse 226 puts it into a nutshell:

Those who train themselves by day and night and are ever watchful will destroy their evil thoughts and approach Nirvana.

So this embodies the new ethic, new not in the sense that it is not ancient, as Buddhism is, but new to the humanity who has lived on the old ethics of divide and rule for so long a time. In the next part we will consider the ways of healing that division.

Continued in part 3

By Eileen Benson

Dear Editor,

In an article in Newsletter issue 30 entitled “Is There Anybody Out There?” the answer is ‘Yes’. We are all still out here, and if all the old (and new members) were to come together, we should still experience that old closeness and brotherhood that was so strong 20+ years ago. There is a bond that can never be broken.

Unfortunately, time has moved on, we are all so scattered, travelling has become expensive, some of us are getting old, sick, whilst others in work are working too hard too long. Accommodation at summer retreats are out of reach financially or time-wise, and altogether things are very different. But then, on the other hand, we had years of wonderful teaching from Phiroz. Were not we blessed? Repetition is really no answer to having listened, absorbed and lived that teaching then. One cannot hold onto the past, we have to move on, but, like the fellowship that was gained in those early years, Phiroz’s teaching is deeply embedded in our souls and acts through our lives. How often do we remember his words.

The Trust has done, and is doing, a wonderful job and there is sadness that we do not communicate on a regular basis. It must be soul-destroying to keep putting out newsletters and even information on the Internet and not receiving any response, but there have to come new people with an interest in these teachings and nobody can predict from where they will come or when, but Phiroz’s work will never die — it will flower again when the season is right.

In the meantime, perhaps other members could also belatedly drop a line to say “hi”. It would be great to know where you all are and what you are studying and thinking.

Most of us are doing different things now but hopefully still trying to live the religious life and, however far we move on, we no doubt, still relate it all back to Phiroz’s teaching.

Yours sincerely,

Eileen Benson
Holland-on-Sea

From the Editor

The Dilkusha Talks has just been published by the Trust. This is a catalogue containing brief summaries of over 500 talks by Phiroz Mehta, given at his home at Forest Hill between 1969 and 1989.

This is being distributed free of charge, and if you would like a copy or copies, please contact the Trust.

The catalogue covers all the talks given at Dilkusha, but not talks given at other locations, for example at the Buddhist Society Summer Schools, Phiroz’s own Summer Schools, and at a number of other places.

Cassettes of all the talks, both those catalogued in The Dilkusha Talks and also talks given elsewhere, are available from the Trust.

The Dilkusha Talks will be a most useful guide to all those interested in the work of Phiroz and in living the religious life. Do send for your copy or copies now.