Searching for a Jewel

By Bhadra

Excerpts from a talk given in Brixton to celebrate Wesak, a festival celebrating the enlightenment of the Buddha

Wesak is being celebrated throughout the Buddhist world. It is the celebration of the experience of enlightenment found for us by the Buddha Shakyamuni.

So what is enligtenment? Unfortunately the experience is said to be completely beyond description. It cannot be pinned down. So if I was to try to explain enlightenment this would be a very short talk. What others have done is to poetically allude to it, to try to give a sense of the general direction of the experience.

So here are some of the words used in the scriptures to evoke a sense of this experience.

The harbour of refuge, the cool cave, the island amongst the floods, the place of bliss, emancipation, liberation, safety, the uncreated, the tranquil, the unshaken, the calm, the bliss of effort, the further shore, the ineffable, the unending, the supreme joy, the imperishable.

So how can we really celebrate such an elusive experience. How can we sense its value, not just as an intellectual model that is said to be the goal of human life but as something we can emotionally engage with, something that stirs our heart.

Some of you were involved in the construction of the shrine and that is one way to connect to the mystery of enlightenment. If enlightenment is seen as the culmination of the Buddhas quest then we can connect to enlightenment through the acknowledgement of our own quest. If we turn to our own experiences of significance and meaning we may find a resonance with the Buddhas own search for meaning. He reflects our own quest to find meaning in life. The quest to find ways to discover and embody our deepest values, The quest to open up to significance in this mysterious river of life.

This is why we tell the stories to recall the Buddhas quest so that we can

connect more wholeheartedly with the significance of Wesak as a celebration of enlightenment as the natural outcome of the quest. By including this we can find resonances with our own stories. I don't believe there is anyone here who is not in some way searching for greater value and meaning in their life. So the quest gives us tangible common ground with the Buddha.

This is the reason for the shrine today. An attempt to make a tangible connection between enlightenment and the values we journey with. Does the Buddha sitting here resonate with your personal journey?

This resonance is something we all seek. We all want to know we are not mad and completely alone. Recognition and companionship is a basic human need. We also need to find ways to share our rich experience. We all are walking around carrying all this wealth and yet because it is so precious it can be hard to share. I believe the path to enlightenment is in part made up of this acknowledgement of our riches and finding ways of embodying and expressing them.

We place a Buddha form on the shrine to personify or exemplify enlightenment but do we limit our sense of what it might be by doing this? What does the Buddha form communicate to us enlightenment? Nearer the historical time of the Buddha the symbol for enlightenment was an empty seat. In early temple reliefs we see perhaps a simple mat beside a tree or an image of a collection of disciples seated around an empty space. So enlightenment in those early days was never pinned down, never defined by form. So how would it be if upon the shrine we used this symbol of the empty seat.

Of course it is already there. The empty seat is always there creating a space in which we can sense our own unique potential. An open space that calls to us all. But how do we respond if there is not a predetemined model to move towards. If we have nothing to fit into, no peaceful, blissful figure to give us a few clues then there is nothing to cling onto. We have only open space to become ourselves.

Symbolising the goal of the spiritual life in this way states I hope very clearly the expansive and creative nature of the path. It avoids the pitfall of seeing the spiritual life as reductive and constricting.

The Buddhist spiritual path is a growing into that creative, life filled space from here, where we are now, sitting in our uniqueness. We can choose to be supported by entering into a creative relationship to the teachings that are offered to us. Meditation is a very clear example. We can teach the basic practices and offer advice and encouragement but we can never forsee what will happen when you sit down and close your eyes. What you do with the teaching will be your own unique experience. It is the same with the principles of Buddhism. We can hear about them and discuss them but how they impact on our lives will be unique to us. If we really engage with these practices, if we let them into our lives the consequences could be profound. The Buddhas teaching are there solely to support our growth.

At this point there was a reading of a parable named the rain cloud taken from the White Lotus sutra

From this I hope it is clear that Buddhism is not about forcing ourselves to be a good buddhist, We need to trust our own experiences and aspirations and trust our own unfoldment in the nourishing rain of the Dharma. If we find ourselves begrudging every moment of our meditation, screaming inwardly as we sip lemonade at a polite party. Making ourselves miserable as we resist the desire for bacon butties. This is not the Buddhist path. We have to be clear in our own minds why we are meditating. Why we are making the choice to not get blind drunk or not eat meat. We have to take responsibility for our own desire to deepen our awareness and develop positive mental states. The rain of the dharma is there to nourish us not drown us. I think it is so important to remember there is no one forcing us into these activities.

Perhaps I am stating the obvious but sometimes it is important to state the obvious. I believe it is crucial that we are aware of the risk that we take by involving ourselves in any spiritual group. I believe there can be a great risk to our spiritual well being, even to our unique quest.

The primary risk is that one will give ones own power over to an imaginary authority. This creates a world of should or musts and quickly destroys the creativity that is so vital for a well lived life.

I feel this is a very sensitive issue and one that limits many people from engaging with organised religion. We probably all have been stung by this painful sense of being wrong or not good enough and it is all the more painful because it talks to us at the level of our precious treasure that we are trying to protect and nourish. There are no simple answers to this dilemma. I think the central issue is to maintain the initiative. Making sure it is your choice and not them or it telling you how to live your life. In a way it is quite natural to do this. We all have a desire to belong. Life would be so much easier if we could just hand over all our choices to a spiritual parent who would answer all our questions and be blamed for all our disappointments and discomfort.

You may think I have disappeared on a bit of a rant but the reason I am talking like this is to make it clear that we each have a unique path and we have to take responsibility for that. The way we express our values and experiences will be unique to us. Ultimately the way enlightenment manifests through us will be unique. It is said there are numerous buddhas in numerous universes and they each communicate their experience differently. Some communicate by scent, some by music, some by silence, some by gesture and we are no different. Enlightenment is boundless and always beyond all conceptual constructs but it has manifested in the world through the efforts and life of the Buddha Shakyamuni and we have a connection with him and he with us. This connection is manifest in the shrine. Some of us have laid that which is precious to us upon the shrine and my request to you is take that precious object, that memory or value and bear it in mind. Allow it to influence you activity. Allow it to live in your life. Please note I include myself in this. This is my struggle to live from my deepest values and try to embody my aspiration. I do this to some extent to acknowledge the gratitude to the Buddha. Without his struggle and responsibility towards his quest my life would probably be so much more confusing and frustrating.

I think the example of the Buddhas quest gives us much important clarification of this process of creativity and responsibility. The Buddha searched until he found a teacher that resonated with his understanding. Importantly he then engaged fully with the practices. He didn't try them and when they got uncomfortable stopped. He took them as far as he could whilst remaining clear about his own path. With his first teacher he became so adept that he had travelled as far as his teacher. His teacher then offered him joint leadership of his disciples but the Buddha knew he had to move on and continue his search for enlightenment. He did this several times fully engaging with the practices and at the same time always alert to his own internal values. Finally he realised there was no one who could help him and he made that momentous decision to move away from the austerities of ascetism and trust his experience under the rose apple tree. He would just sit for as long as it took to gain enlightenment.

So I am suggesting to you to really test out the teachings of Buddhism by engaging with them as fully as possible. Of course you may choose to move on. I of course believe if you fully engage with Buddhism you will not need to look any further but I am biased so do not trust me. Trust and take responsibility for yourself.

This is the daunting responsibility of adulthood and also I believe, the duty embodied in the Buddhist path. We have to take responsibility for our own lives and particularly our spiritual life.

There is of course a very real danger in my saying what I have said so far,

the danger of spiritual arrogance or pride. We live in a very privileged world of instant gratification and infinite choices. We pick up a book to read. We read a few sentences and already have made a judgement of that book. We see a person enter a room. We instantly decide if we are attracted to that person or not. We hear a single idea from a spiritual group and we immediately make a whole judgement regarding a tradition stretching back hundreds if not thousands of years.

Because of this tendency we may judge that our own unique path does not coincide with the teachings of the Buddha and I of course believe that would be a great loss.

The image is sometimes given of a blind man scrabbling in a vast dung heap stretching as far as the eye can see. As he digs and sifts he stumbles across a rare and precious jewel. This image reflects how rare an opportunity it is to stumble across the teachings of the Buddha. Even more unusual is that this jewel is recognised for what it is, so precious and so practical.

But how can we tell this? If we just see the goal of enlightenment as the radiant peaceful figure of the Buddha is this enough to know the precious treasure we have stumbled across. Do we have enough information to know what to do with this jewel? We need some vision of the path leading to that state.

The Buddha said all I have taught is just a handful of leaves plucked from

the vast forest of the enlightened mind. So there is always more. The Buddha dharma is never finite. It has to be to be able to speak to each and every one of us in our uniqueness. The enlightened mind is a mind of abundance, of constant unfoldment, delightful creativity and fathomless appropriateness.

As we notice the shrine we have to acknowledge what is calling us for this is our jewel. This is the jewel of the quest that the Buddha to be responded to and what we can choose to respond to moment by moment.

What could be more satisfying and fulfilling than treasuring this jewel that one day will become another facet in the flaming diamond of liberation. The many faceted precious jewel that is growing gradually in each and everyone of us.

All we have to do is to respond and value the treasure we all carry.