BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Buddhism Accepting Whatever Comes

One of our great advertisers on BellaOnline is BillsFriends.com - they sell inspirational jewelry. They also have an interesting blog. Here is an entry which really struck me -

Trust and a Wheelbarrow

Read that first before continuing

...

So what struck me with this is that I used to dismiss "oh just leave it in the hands of xxxx" statements. That struck me as very passive, very much the "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz!" mentality. You have to take care of yourself and your family! You have to find a way to earn money, you can't just watch TV all day and wait for God (or whoever you believe in) to shower wealth on your head!

But in reading this, I realized they are saying something ELSE (at least in this message). It's not that they expect the world to shower them with everything. A person still has to take care of their health, work to put food on the table, and so on. What they are saying is you need to learn to be AT PEACE WITH THE RESULTS. If you are working hard, and doing your best and what you can afford at the moment is a small cottage, then you need to be at peace with that small cottage and embrace it as a home. Yes, you can diligently work for a bigger cottage that fits your family more appropriately. But for now, it does not help anyone to gripe and moan about how awful life is to you. You need to appreciate what you have, find true gratitude for the blessings in your world, and make peace with your current situation.

That sounded very Buddhist to me!

It also sounds very Christian. Philippians 4:10-13 (NIV) reads "I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

In a Roman jail when he wrote the book of Philippians, Paul was content and wanted to ease his friends' concerns for him. Wow! To be in jail and still be content. Guess he realized God knew what He was doing and placed his trust completely in Him.

It isn't always easy to be content, especially with the advertisements for bigger and better things. But it can be done. I'm not all the way there, yet, but hopefully I will be soon.

Oh definitely I did not mean to imply at all that it was NOT Christian. It is very Christian!

I just meant that it was always a hard idea for me to fathom before. I am starting to see what it means.

As I am intrigued by the Buddhist path, I am seeing that, along with other religions, that the Buddhist path seems to have this same viewpoint.

I'm afraid I don't find it in the slightest bit Buddhist.
Whether they decide to rely on God to answer their prayers, or accept that God will make the best decision for the time, at the time - it's still putting the "Responsibility" for whatever happens - out there.
The main point is, that Buddhists would never consider whether the Buddha would walk a tightrope, because he wouldn't be so stupid as to even take the risk. And the Buddhist would never climb into the wheelbarrow, because it wouldn't prove anything.
Neither exercise would.
it's an exercise with no end-game.
So he could walk the tightrope.
so what?
If we got into the wheelbarrow, and we both fell, more fools us for taking that risk, and needlessly testing.
as usual, the comparison is made with Christian thinking, and all the while, people forget.
The buck - in Buddhism - stops here.
Our Faith isn't based on the hope that something will come good, our faith is based on the confidence that ultimately, we can discard the pointless and focus on what matters. Which is the acceptance of the maelstrom whirling around us, whilst remaining unmoveably calm and serene.
In short, we shouldn't care one way or the other what happens, because regardless of what happens, we should rise above it.

Don't forget that in essence, Christianity is similar to - and follows along the same lines as - Buddhism.
Not the other way around.

First off, after reading this thread, I just have to ask, how many Lisas are there writing for BellaOnline??

Anyway Lisa (Shea!), like Alexandra, I didn't react to this in terms of it being particularly Buddhist. But I may have simply been distracted by the talk about a higher power or being. I understand what you mean about 'acceptance of what is' itself seeming Buddhist, but personally I think that acceptance is very different than trust in a higher power.

And I also know what you mean about how you used to think this kind of acceptance was too passive. This is something I often hear people say about both Buddhism, and all Eastern-born traditions, actually. But I do think it is exactly the opposite - Buddhism in particular is about taking personal responsibility for one's life.

An awful lot of people consider Buddhism to be "an easy way out" or a cop-out religion... (please understand, most emphatically, I am not saying that's the case here...!) because an awful lot of people misunderstand Buddhism, and it's primary objective:
The Buddha stated that his only quest was to "teach the cause of suffering and the cessation of Suffering."
And because it is such a simple edict, and because people think we're worshipping a fat guy, people think we're choosing the easy (not to say laid-back) option.
In fact, being accountable, or trusting in an 'outer Power' is, to many Buddhists, the actual cop-out.
Being able to behave in a sinful way, is really not that bad, because God/Jesus forgives. You can always come back to him, because he understands, and is an all-encompassing forgiving being. (remember that the vast majority of Buddhists in the West are ex-Christians, or have lived and been brought up in a Christian culture.....)
A Buddhist has no such avenue to follow. We're the ones who have to not only face up to our unskillful actions, but we have to do the hard work to change, because we - and only we - can put things right.
(The Tiger Woods thread in this forum is an interesting read.....I am given to understand that reference to his Buddhist upbringing caused a furore, in the USA. Must say, we in good ol' UK are none to pleased, either.....)
But see? All cynicism aside, Tiger has nobody to confess to, no atonement for his sins, no "I'll give it all up to God"....
He has to do this on his own.
for Tiger Woods - and all sincere Buddhists, there is no wire across the canyon.
we got to do this alone.
And you know what?
We're happy to.
Because if I mess up, then I know what my failings are, and I know that it's all up to me to steer it back to centre. Hard work, at times. But I prefer it to being able to shove it all off my shoulders and let somebody else handle it.
But at least, for my part, I can look at myself in the mirror, and know that I am "all my own work".
hey, credit where credit's due......

It's interesting, I am reading Stephen Batchelor's Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist (he also wrote Buddhism without beliefs) for review next week, and he touches on this theme in various forms a lot. He was a Tibetan Buddhist monk for several years, and ended up leaving that tradition, in part because he felt it had moved away from this essential core of personal responsibility with guru-yoga and deity visualization etc., i.e. that it recreates a 'faith in a higher power' mentality. I am not sure this is entirely fair, because the Tibetan Buddhist teachers I have known were very explicit about these methods being tools for discovering the ground of our own awareness, but it's interesting to consider that in the West especially, some people tend to view approach it as faith in an outside power. So he makes a compelling case. This is only part of his argument, I might add, but it's interesting....

It's interesting, I am reading Stephen Batchelor's Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist (he also wrote Buddhism without beliefs) for review next week, and he touches on this theme in various forms a lot. He was a Tibetan Buddhist monk for several years, and ended up leaving that tradition, in part because he felt it had moved away from this essential core of personal responsibility with guru-yoga and deity visualization etc., i.e. that it recreates a 'faith in a higher power' mentality.

I am not sure this is entirely fair, because the Tibetan Buddhist teachers I have known were very explicit about these methods being tools for discovering the ground of our own awareness, but it's interesting to consider that in the West especially, some people tend to fall into the pattern of approaching these methods as a kind of faith in an outside power. So he makes a compelling case. This is only part of his argument, I might add, but it's interesting....

yes, Lisa-B, I got you the first time!:D

This is actually one of the reasons I follow the Theravada tradition.
It's very "tell-it-like-it-is", 'cut to the chase' Buddhism, with a no-nonsense approach, and a very direct way of saying 'This is it, read, mark, inwardly digest, then deal with it.'
I love it.
Sometimes, it's like a bucket of cold water, but the sharp shock and intake of breath certainly opens my eyes, and can be very bracingly refreshing!
The problem is (if indeed, it can be called a 'problem') I permit myself to be influenced to react to input, contribution and comments from others in similar fashion.
I'm very "tell-it-like-it-is", 'cut to the chase' in my approach, and it doesn't always go down very well.....

It's interesting how we each have our own interpretation of something we read, with all sorts of other ideas that get overlaid on it!

For me, I wasn't focusing on the wheelbarrow part or the higher power part. The only specific aspect which really caught my attention was the idea that we "let go our expectations of the results", that we are at peace with whatever the result is. I'm sure I must have heard that idea hundreds of times, in stories, in parables, and so on. But for whatever reason, in this context (or maybe in this stage of my life and travels) it clicked with me.

So it wasn't at all about trusting in a higher power or getting into a wheelbarrow, for me. It was that one idea, the idea of saying "All right. Whatever comes, I will accept it."