Internal and External Peace

Read another chapter of Sheng Yen's Zen (Chán) and Enlightenment entitled Zen--Internal and External Peace. He is excellent. He writes in simple, direct and everyday language. He writes so that others can understand him. He does not write like so many Buddhist writers: to display his erudition. He writes like a Boddhisattva. He made me think.

One of the most common errors made by ordinary folks like us is that we focus the attention of our lives upon things which are outside of ourselves, instead of those powers we have within ourselves. Hence we struggle very hard but may still find that we are not getting anywhere. Or if we do, we find that our successes are shortlived. We all say we want to find "happiness". But often, it seems that everything we do merely increases our misery. The reason is simple. We did not direct our efforts and our energies at the right places. We wrongly thought that by achieving our "targets", by realizing our plans or projects, we shall be happy e.g we want to buy that house, that sports car, those clothes, those shoes, those diamond rings. We want to go to that expensive restaurant. We want to visit those "must see" tourist spots.  We want to be seen with that political leader, that CEO, that head of government department. We want to be the head of the company, statutory body, voluntary organization, hospital, school, church, temple, organization etc. We want our bank balance to be counted in million or even billions. We want to be a movie star or a famous singer and the winner of various prizes. We want to be the number one in whatever field we engage ourselves in. We want every one to bow to us and show us respect wherever we go. We want to retain the looks we had when we were 18 or 28. We want praises from every one we see etc. We forget that to achieve such aims, we have to rely upon the external environment and on other people or that we need to go against the laws of nature and to that extent, we shall be at its or their mercy. We are no longer our own masters. We have become slaves, to the external circumstances and to other people. We find that our desires are perfectly "normal" and "natural". We fail to realize that our greatest enemy and our greatest obstacle to our own "happiness" is ourselves.

Sheng Yen says that whenever we observe our mind, we find that our mind is not within ourselves. It is always directed outwards, to things, objects, targets outside of ourselves. He asks: is what is outside opposed to what is inside? From the Buddhist perspective, what is outside and what is inside is a unity, not opposed to each other. He says, "So long as we have internal peace, clarity and purity, the outside world will also be the same." We may do so if we adopt the Buddhist method. To him, the external world reflects and reacts to the work of our past mind. All our projects begin in our mind. Our external world is a reflection and the result of our individual and our collective minds. But for most of us, our failure to achieve "happiness" is due first of all, to our individual or our collective ignorance. Buddhism does it best to bring us to our senses. It tries to tell us that to be happy, we must first of all understand why we are unhappy. To the Buddhist: we are unhappy because we fail to realize how our mind and our emotions work. We are all slaves to our past mental habits and we are unhappy because of our tendencies towards wanting more experiences (avarice, greed, gluttony, addiction) which we think may give us joy or pleasure and when we do not get them, we feel sad, unhappy, frustrated, disappointed and angry. We long to have them or we fear not getting them or getting them in time or in the quantity we desire. But due to our ignorance, we do not realize that by their nature, joys and happiness are always transient, fleeting. They are just feelings and by their nature, feelings never last for any substantial period of time. For some, even if they realize this, they refuse to accept it. Such refusal is a supplementary cause of our unhappiness.

To the Buddhist, a deeper cause of our unhappiness is our concept of our "self". We long for things which we think will give us pleasure and joy for our "self", which we think is opposed to others and to the external world. We fail to realize that there is no "substance" to this so-called "self". Are we the same "self" at birth, at age 3, age 7, age 11. age 18, age 28, age 38, age 48...88? Our bodies undergo changes every minute. So do our thoughts and our feelings. So do the things that we do. Are we our body, our thoughts and feelings or what we did or the memories of them at various stages of our lives at different places when we were with different people? Yet this is the way we "normally" think or imagine our "selves" to be! If we realize that there is no substance, no permanence and no "reality" at all in that "self", should we still fret, fear, get angry over or stress ourselves to protect and to promote what we think is in the interest of that "image", that non-substantial and constantly changing "illusion" of the "self" ?

Very often, we shall feel happiest when we forget "who" we are, when we spend all our time in looking after other people e.g our lover, spouse,  family, relative, friend or even complete strangers. When all our attention is focused on others or on the work that we do for the benefit of others whether it be ironing some clothes, cooking a meal, sweeping the floor, taking a child to school, teaching a lesson, concentrating on working at a specific task at our work place, listening to a friend's sorrows and figuring out a practical way of helping him/her to improve his/her situation etc. we will find our "self" in that task at that moment in time at that place, we will have completely "forgotten" our "self". To that extent, the boundary between our transient "self" and the others or the external world will have melted of its own accord. We shall "be" the person(s) with whom we are with at that point in time and place. In an analogous way, we shall "be" the task that we are doing at that point in time at that place. Hence the constant reminder by the Buddha to us to concentrate on or be mindful or be aware of the here and now: on the work we are doing and on the person(s) with whom we are at that particular point in time and place.

To the Buddhist, the world is governed by the operation of law of cause and effect which constantly interact and mutually influence each other such that a "cause" will at the same time be the "effect" of one or more prior "causes" and which itself will become a "cause" of one or more future "effects". The web of cause and effect has operated for countless eons in the past. It is operating at this very moment. It will continue to operate in the future. To that extent and in that sense, it is eternal. Very frequently, people will refuse to acknowledge this. Because of such refusal, they cause themselves endless misery. A 60 year old woman wants to look as if she were 18. She does all kinds of things: mascara, mask, plastic surgery, injection of Botox, dyeing her hair, even doing hair transplant etc. She does not control her diet, does not do exercises and expect to be healthy. She is dreaming. She is a somnambulist! Facts must be accepted. We change whatever we can reasonably change. We accept whatever cannot be changed. If we think that somehow, we are exempt from the laws of nature, the laws of economy, the laws of social intercourse, the laws of health, the laws of psychological well-being, we are living in the world of illusion and reality has a way of bringing us back to our senses, often in very unceremonious and even brutal ways. We must base our lives on what we know to be real, not on our subjective illusions. Yet most people prefer to live in an illusory world. Is it any wonder that they suffer? Is it surprising that they find themselves stressed and unhappy most of the time? They got no one to blame, except their ignorance and their stubbornness in refusing to obey the implacable laws of nature, the laws of economy, the laws of social intercourse, the laws of health etc. They live either in the past or are governed by their memory of the past. They complain about their unhappiness. Yet they refuse to change the way they lead their lives or to do anything concrete to lift themselves out of their misery. They are merely being unrealistic. They are their own worst enemies.

Buddhism teaches man to be mindful of the true nature of his "self" and how "unreal" that concept is and how that erroneous concept has been the root cause of his "unhappiness" or "suffering", which is just a different way of saying more or less the same thing. Once the concept of "self" is recognized as "empty", once it is realized and accepted that we have been stressing our "self" over an "illusion", that "nothing", then a great stumbling block to the recovery of that quiet, serene, peace of mind and calmness of emotions will have been removed and we shall be well on our way to experiencing that "happiness" which we all say we want to and are "striving" to have. We must realize that happiness or satisfaction is merely the relief of tension in our "muscles" , physical or mental. What is stress if not tension building up and having an iron grip on our muscles or our mind? So once the source of tension is removed, we shall feel that peace of mind and a sense of silent satisfaction. The imagined "boundary" between that unreal or illusory "self" and others and of the world will have completely disappeared, vanished, demolished, dissolved. It takes two hands to produce a clap. If the "self" has vanished, where is its "opposing hand" to produce the clap of conflict : the "others" or the "external world"? Shall we then still be able to hear the sound of one hand clapping, that clap of tension or conflict or unhappiness?