Hi everyone,
I know you haven’t heard from me for a while. Hope you’re all doing okay out there. Part of the reason I haven’t been writing newsletters is that my writing energy has gone into finishing the heavily revised second edition of Just As You Are: Buddhism for Foolish Beings and now it’s done and out there in the world!
I’m so pleased to have finished this project. I’m really proud of the new book. It’s better written (well, my chapters are better written, Satya was always a good writer), more compassionate and reflects our latest thinking on what it means to be human and Buddhist practice.
Read on for an exerpt from my chaper Bonbu nature.
Avaiable to order from all good bookshops accross the world (ISBN: 978-0993131783) and of course from Amazon: UK kindle, US kindle, UK paperback, US paperback.
Reviews very much appreciated, thank you :)
Bombu nature
There is a story in the Lotus Sutra about two friends. One is very wealthy and the other is not. The poor friend goes to a party at the wealthy one's house, becomes very drunk and falls asleep. While they are asleep the wealthy friend sews a jewel into the seam of their sleeping friend's coat.
The next day the poor friend sets out on a long journey and along the way works hard to pay for food and lodging. A while later the two friends meet again and the wealthy one tells their friend, “Why did you work so hard! I sewed that jewel into your coat so you wouldn’t need to worry! It’s probably still sewn in there right now!”
A few years after I had started meditating and reading about Buddhism, I was gifted with a glimpse of interconnection. It was a joyful vision. It’s difficult to put such moments into words but the world seemed particularly vivid, as each object and being was reaching out to me. I was conscious deep in my heart of how all of us living and non-living beings were rising from and falling into emptiness, and then the boundaries between all of us collapsed and I fell into an experience of oneness. It passed, of course, as these things always do, and ordinary consciousness returned.
Later I wandered around town feeling very sorry for all the ‘ordinary people’ who had not found the jewels sewn into their own coats, and feeling very smug that I had discovered the jewel sewn into mine.
I cringe as I recall that day. How arrogant and self-centred! Something wonderful had happened, and then a self-protective part of me kicked in that used that experience to prop up my ego and put me above others. In doing so, the experience of interconnectedness disappeared. I was alone again, and sowing the seeds for my own future suffering. Nobuo Haneda suggests that an enlightened person bows to all beings (animate and inanimate) as if they are buddhas. How far away from enlightenment I was in that moment!
Pure Land Buddhism teaches that we are all bombu. Bombu is usually translated as foolish, and is sometimes part of the longer phrase, ‘foolish beings of wayward passion.’ We could also translate it as flawed, fallible, prone to harming others, limited or perhaps simply: human.
The most profound Pure Land teaching is that Amida’s universal vow is for beings such as this. However we understand ‘Amida’ and ‘the Pure Land’, we come to know that we are completely welcome in their embrace just as we are.
Internal Family Systems teaches us that all of our negative impulses and actions are forms of self-protection. We are wounded creatures, and in order to try and avoid feeling the pain of those wounds we behave in ways which end up causing further harm to ourselves and others.
Why did I tip from that spiritual experience into conceit? I carry pockets of insecurity and unworthiness. There was a moment following the experience of oneness when I very nearly felt completely undeserving of that experience. My conceited, self-protective parts worried (rightly or wrongly) that if they allowed the thought that I was undeserving to surface that I would have spiralled into a dark place of worthlessness. Instead, they inflated my ego.
It’s a far from perfect strategy. An inflated ego is likely to lead to experiences of rejection which might well trigger the feelings I was trying to avoid in the first place. But these strategies are not planned or thought out rationally. They happen quickly and out of sight and we are carried along by them, often without noticing them at all.
The teaching of bombu nature invites us to become aware of our self-protective and harmful tendencies. This awareness can signpost us to areas in ourselves that need attention and healing. The healing is always worthwhile, and at the same time we are not going to become flawless beings in this lifetime. I am lucky to have received a good deal of healing both through my spiritual practices and through finding therapeutic support, and those pockets of insecurity and worthlessness are much smaller and fewer. But there will always be something. We continue to be foolish beings.