Another Session of Buddhist Guidance

It's Monday night again last night. I went to the UUHK premises in Mongkok for another session on Buddhist guidance. I was early. So was A, the chairman of the UUHK. This time he came alone without his wife and his lovely baby. For some reasons his 8 month-old son seemed to have taken a liking to me. He would often tease me by searching me with his eyes and then giving me his big baby's smile. Perhaps because I like to tickle him everytime I see him and would swing him up in the air. Perhaps he found that tremendously exciting and was looking for more repeats. I love to look at his big smiling eyes. I missed him.

Shortly afterwards, J arrived. J is the hypnotherapist and is supposed to be the chairman of the session. Then the monk arrived, with his middle-aged lady disciple. He was surprised that there were no young people around this time. We waited. Whilst waiting, he asked how we should like to proceed for the next few sessions. He said he found it very congenial to come to talk to us about Buddhism and wanted to have our feedback how we wished to take the matter forward. We suggested that we would like to hear whatever he thought it good that we should hear. He then told us that this time, he would like to talk about the kind of external assistance Buddhist followers could get from those Buddhas who had already attained Buddhahood.(他力). He said if we learn how to rely on 他力, many of the obstacles to our path of spiritual advancement could be cut short considerably. Then he suggested that perhaps it was because some of us were talking about Buddhism at a level a little bit too deeply for some of the younger participants on the last occasion that none of them came this time. For that reason, he suggested that we should discuss Buddhism at a level closer to actual everyday life to help the young people because to him, that might make Buddhism more relevant and therefore more interesting to them. I said that I had no problem with that because after all, why else did the Buddha choose to remain within the secular world and continued to preach more than 40 years after he himself attained Buddhahood. A also agreed. The monk said that he found that he had no problems communicating with A, J and me because we all seemed to have a lot of experience of life but that perhaps the young people did not come this time because they found that we were talking over their heads and they could not fully understand what we were talking about. Then J said he would really like the monk to talk a little about how to do meditation. The monk agreed.

When we were in the middle of that discussion, M, the young lady he identified as the "river goddess" arrived. His face lit up. It was quite obvious he wanted her to become his disciple. Then he told her what we were discussing before she arrived and asked her if she understood everything we were discussing last time. She said in general she did but she did find some of things we talked about a little beyond her. Then he asked M if she wanted him to talk about how Buddhism may help to solve some practical problems she encountered in her own life. She said that would be good. The monk then asked her what kind of problems she had. But before she answered, he said he remembered that she previously said that  she told us that she would like to deal with her problems of her relationship with boys. She said that was her problem. She said that although she would like to develop an amorous relationship with some boys and she in fact tried it, she somehow found that it all seemed so meaningless because she did not find it particularly absorbing, exciting or even interesting and she was puzzled why that should be the case as she was still quite young.  The monk then said that that was because she was previously a river goddess who had already got accustomed to a life of peace and quiet in the realm of the spirit and was therefore not that much interested in the affairs of the mundane world. M then said that appeared to be the case. She said that she found it very bothersome to have to deal with so many people and would often remain silent in a crowd and found it to difficult to have to talk to other people. She said he did not have much interest in what is going on in the world to the extent that  she did not read any newspapers, magazines nor watch any television and only occasionally read books. I then asked her if it was the case that she was not happy with her present state because she was looking for some passion, something that would make her life exciting, something which would make her stay awake all night thinking about it, something which would make her sit up with a palpitating heart and tell herself  "that's exactly what makes it worthwhile" for her to be alive. I asked her if she was looking for some fire in her life! She said that was precisely what she was thinking but that somehow, at the bottom of her heart, she was also plagued with a vague feeling that even if she were to find it, still that wouldn't mean anything. But the monk said that since she was previously a river goddess, her natural element was water, not fire and hence her general apathy about life and that the reason might be that she still had not found her vocation in life which suits her natural temperament of wanting peace and quiet. She then said that she had thought of giving up secular life and becoming a nun but felt it a bit too early because she had not yet experienced any passionate love with a boy and she would like to find out how it felt like before finally deciding but that at the moment she was reading some stuffs by New Age writers like Osho. Then the monk told her that he had tried to make use of his own powers of "god-capability" (神通) to see into her life and that was what he found too. But upon hearing the name Osho, he said that some of his fellow monks who had attained greater "god-capability" than him had also checked out this man and found that this man was a morally depraved person because he frequently had sex with his female disciples. He said that according to Buddhist beliefs, we are now in the final age of the world where there are all kinds of false prophets and spiritual leaders. But to me, that kind of talk had been around since the time of Jesus! He said that the Buddha had already predicted that Buddhism would die in India and flourish in China because many of its ideas coincide with those of Taosim e.g. its ideas about the importance of the Void or Nothingness. I then said that as far as religions and spirituality is concerned, there has always been charlatans and crooks and wolves in sheeps'skin. That is not surprising at all because many people really need spiritual help, are supersititous and are unable to think for themselves. She then told us that C, another member of the UUHK was one of Osho's disciples. The monk said that that man is a bad spiritual leader and should be shunned by M at all costs!  At that M began to feel a little embarrassed and said that she did not want to monopolize everybody's time by talking about her own problem and she would like to hear what problems the other members had in their spiritual life.

The monk then looked at me and asked me if I would like to share with the others what problems I had. I said, my problem appear to be that I could not find any serious problems with my spiritual life. The only problem, if it is a problem  at all, is that although I am  a Catholic and still go to mass on Sunday, I have ceased to believe in many of the stuffs which all Catholics are supposed to believe e.g whether Jesus is truly the son of God in the way taught by the Church, whether the world is created by God, whether there are three persons in the Holy Trinity, whether the Blessed Virgin is really a virgin who gave birth to Jesus without being inseminated by Joseph and whether there is resurrection of the body at the final day of judgement. My problem is that I do not find it necessary to believe in all that and still believe that I can be a sort of "Christian"  because I believe that what is important is not the nature of God as a theological and metaphysical concept  but whether we practice what Jesus taught ie. loving our neighbors. I said I found Jesus a very sensible spiritual leader and many of the things he was reported to have said according to the New Testament appear to me very good and insightful advice and I felt that so long as I practised what he taught, I did not care if I went to heaven or went to hell or whether there really was such a kind of heaven or hell as we were taught. To me, heaven and hell are merely metaphors for two kinds of mental or psychological or moral or spiritual states, not physical places as taught by the Church and I took a similar attitude towards the Buddhist's heavens and hells. I said that insofar as I tried my best to live up to what Jesus taught, ie, to love others as I love myself, I have not encountered any serious problems. He said that some of the other monks have also done a check on the previous life of Jesus and found that Jesus was in fact the teacher of one of the Buddhas in Jesus' previous life. I said that recently I have started to read about Buddhism and found many of the ideas of Buddha very wise, insightful and sensible and although I had already read the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra, I did not know enough about it and my problem is getting someone who really knows about it to teach me so that I needed not waste time but otherwise I said, so far I had been most fortunate in that I have yet to find any serious problem that I could not solve with my own resources. In fact, I felt that I still got some spare capacity which I would like to use to help those less fortunate that I am. I said that I am married with two children and all of them appear to be quite happy and well looked after and that my daughters too appear to be doing fine and do not have any pressure from me because I told them that my role is to help them find their own way in life so that they can live their life the way they want it and to do what they think would give their own life meaning, not the way I want it. I said that old age and death do not bother me at all. I know and accept that everyone will  grow old and will die sooner or later and that I would find it genuinely surprising if that were not the case and if I accept that as I accept that there is a sun, there is a sky, there are oceans and mountains on this earth, then I cannot see that old age or death should cause me any problems. So far, I have not had any health problems and I will not worry about them until the time when they actually present themselvs as problems. I said that the only problem which caused me to feel a little unhappy was that I could not be with my wife if she felt she needed me but that I knew that my wife was a very independent woman, overflowing with love and compassion in her heart and as far as I am aware, she appeared to be quite happy doing what she is doing, helping to look after three lovely Spanish girls in America when she does not have to look after my daughters and has got a group of very good friends at the Catholic church there in Washington, so that is not a serious problem. I said I would very much like to treat her better when I retire so that I can be by her side all the time, she being a woman and might want me to be physically close to her and that I would like to take her to an extended world tour and generally let her enjoy life the way she wants but that my only problem is that I cannot see myself retiring until at least another three years when my second daughter will be in her second year of college and my elder daughter should have graduated and probably found herself a steady job. The monk said that I was very objective and that though I can accept death without fear, not everybody can do so. I said that whether or not they can do so, they have little choice in the matter. Then the monks said my daughters probably had done some good in their previous lives to get a father like me because many parents want to use their children as instruments for the fulfilment of their own unachieved personal ambitions. . 

After that, the monk said that he would like to talk about the nature of reality. To him, there really is a spiritual world out there which one can access if one is sufficiently advanced in his meditation training practice. He said some of those who are more advanced than him in meditation training told him that they could see different worlds and one of them had even seen a flying saucer in a different world and they do not appear to him to be lying. I said whenever I hear this kind of claim, I will feel a little skeptical because even honest people can make honest mistakes about what they "see" in their mind's eyes: they could well be self-generated illusions especially when what they claim to see would coincide with what previous generations of monks said they could see because some of the things they claim to see definitely have architectures of a previous generation. Why the period characteristics? Psychologists have taught us that we tend to see what we want to see! I said that maybe, the Buddha was right, the world is a one huge illusion but we must be careful what we understand by that term. That does not mean that there are no tables and chair, and plants and animals, and earth, sky, seas etc. What the Buddha says is that these are not permanent and what is illusory is the idea that they are permanent conditions and that they have a kind of "solidity" which they do not actually possess. I said that perhaps the entire world is a world of wave forms having the temporary "appearance" of being very solid and that even human life may be just a kind of provisional coming together of certain forms of energy and that at heart, we are made of the same kind of materials as particles and waves which make up the rest of the universe and for that reason, we are not really separate from what is not "me", and that we may be just vibration and waves, which may be the ultimate reality and in the same manner as vibrations can merge into others into other wave forms and interfere with them, our lives here on earth may well be just one of such provisional wave forms which subsists only for a period of time and everything may in a sense be said to be a result of certain mental concepts we form in our brain and taking particular shapes in the same manner that in the Genesis, God said "Let there be light and there was light". Everything started with a thought, an idea. As to how that thought first came into being, no one knows. I said that perhaps it is for that reason that Buddha said that our "selves" or "spirit" is part of the sea of universal "spirit" or consciousness. He did not either agree or disagree.  It was already time. 

Because we waited for M nearly half an hour before she arrived, we did not really have a lot of time for discussion and we had to go at 10 p.m. after which we went to have dinner at that rooftop cooked food stall because in the meantime, Y, who always went there for food, had arrived after having attended another talk given by the head of the HK Observatory on the evolution of the human race. On the way to the place and even at dinner, the monk was trying to persuade M to decide on following her natural bent and to become a nun. She however still seemed a bit hesitant. The monk told me that if I wish, I could just pay some respects to the Buddha by thinking about him in a humble manner and asking for his blessings.