The Heart of Buddhism: A Simple Introduction to Buddhist Practice - Guy Claxton

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happiness and starts generating its opposite instead. The more closely I hitch my contentment to my conditions, the more at risk I am when the unexpected or the unwanted happens – as it must. The more tightly I define these conditions, the more surely I call into being the occasions of my disappointment. The more carefully I lay my contingency plans, the more hard work my life becomes. And so it goes. Beyond a certain point the effort to remove suffering becomes not only tiring but actually counterproductive. Alcoholics Anonymous use a famous prayer that catches something of the balance that we are in danger of losing if we ‘take up arms against a sea of troubles’ too often and too earnestly: ‘Lord, give me the courage to do those things which I can; the serenity to accept those things which I cannot; and the wisdom to tell the difference.’ For Buddhism serenity and wisdom are at least as important as courage.

      The final consequence of the ‘common sense’ approach to life is that it makes a degree of self-centredness inevitable. If my happiness depends on conditions being to my liking, and they happen to conflict with what you want, then I’m afraid one of us is going to be unlucky – and I would rather it wasn’t me. Other people’s peace, happiness and kindliness can be abused or trampled on if necessary. I can be generous only when to be so doesn’t threaten my security. If I need an affair to combat my mounting depression and distance from my family, then so be it. If I’ve set my sights on that promotion, then I can almost convince myself that the stealthy efforts to denigrate my rival are quite legitimate. ‘All’s fair in love and war, old boy, didn’t you know?’ And the small trickle of unease that manages to escape can quickly be sponged off with a bit of bravado and another round of drinks.

      The game plan thus comes to strangle the very qualities that we value most – ease, spontaneity, friendship, openness. We think we are unhappy because of the ‘problems’ and difficulties that come our way, and set off each time to lick reality into shape. Yet the equally obvious fact, that we experience things as problems when we are not on good form, and that they are less problematic from the vantage point of a better mood … the implications of this seem to go unnoticed. ‘We see things not as they are, but as we are’, said Koffka, a German psychologist. If that is so, then our game plan needs to pay attention to the state of mind of the looker, as well as to the objects at which he or she is looking with such longing or revulsion. If it is possible to be in a good mood independently of what is going on – even if this freedom is only partial – then we have opened up another important avenue for promoting our well-being. It is precisely this powerful possibility that Buddhism has exploited to the hilt: the possibility that one can learn to remain at peace, to keep one’s equanimity, not just on the surface but deep down, in the face of situations that are difficult or painful.

      Buddha’s deep realizations were just how much of our suffering is self-inflicted, and just how much elbow room we have to dissociate our serenity from our situation – not by perfecting our defences, so that we become invulnerable, but by seeing for ourselves that defence is quite unnecessary. An Islamic proverb says, ‘Trust in God – but first tether your camel.’ If we will only learn to tether our camel, do our best in the exam, repaint the shed when it needs it – and then realize that we are not destroyed by the thief or the tricky question or the hurricane – then we can keep our balance between doing and accepting, intervening and sitting back. But we cannot leave well alone; we seem to have lost the ability, let alone the serenity, to abide with unavoidable adversity. Whatever it is, it feels like a problem that the right activity would solve, if only we could figure out what that was. So we are embarrassed, for example, when we can do no more than sit with a dying friend. We fidget and chat in order to fend off the experience of impotence, anxiously sneaking glances at the clock and further exhausting the weary friend into the bargain.

      But worse than this, we are full of strange ideas about what needs defending, what needs running after and what must be avoided. As in a fairy story, we have dreamt up dragons to beware of, castles to defend and beautiful princesses or priceless treasures to go in search of. Nothing wrong with that, we might suppose – except that we then take these games for real, and spend our time complaining about how tired and busy we are, and how desperately we are looking forward to the end of term, or to Christmas. (‘Unfortunately though, we always spend Christmas with Sheila’s parents, and after 36 hours of her mother, well, to be honest I shall be looking forward to getting back to the office!’)

      People need a certain amount of material – food and shelter for example – but the game of making money can become so serious that they ruin their health and make strangers of their families in pursuit of it, and jump off tall buildings when they lose it. People need friendship, or most do anyway, so they equip themselves with toupees and false breasts in the quaint belief that they will be better liked if they hide the effects of age. People value communication, but tremble with strangulated rage when someone jumps the queue rather than risk a ‘confrontation’. We all have our personal portfolio of such hostages to fortune, and are quick to chuckle at those which we do not own, or own up to, when we spot them in other people. I am ready to joke with you about people who grow long clumps of hair to paste from one ear to the other. But don’t start on my little pot belly, or I shall suddenly become rather waspish.

      Some of these premises on which we live not only send us off on wild goose chases; they bamboozle us about ourselves as well. They set up rules and regulations about which bits of us are all right and which are not – which to be proud of and display to impress people (‘Cambridge, actually,’ I murmur modestly), and which to feel ashamed of (‘Well, if you must know, it was a third,’ I declare defiantly). Events in the past are sorted into ‘good’, ‘bad’ and ‘indifferent’, while whole categories of human experience are condemned or exalted. To cry is ‘weak’, so I must fend off your tenderness lest I ‘break down’. To assert myself is ‘unfeminine’, so I meekly go along with your stupid suggestion, and compensate for the ensuing self-disgust by secretly rejoicing when you get your comeuppance. To feel afraid is shameful, so I have learnt how to make myself physically sick before school on the days when I have French. To feel violently towards my howling child is too dreadful a thing to admit, so I wake exhausted and cannot tell you about my frightful dreams.

      Buddhism knows all about these buried beliefs that keep us in a state of dissatisfaction. Much of what we cherish is dross, the Buddhists say, and in the protecting of it we run ourselves ragged. We become more or less skilful at putting on a phony front and at keeping our skeletons well locked away. The process of freeing ourselves from anxiety by dredging up these pernicious convictions and putting them to the test of adult reflection is part of the Buddhist programme.

      It is for this reason that Buddhism has some strong relationships with psychotherapy, though they are by no means straightforward. But they are not really the heart of the matter. Students of Buddhism are after bigger fish, and though grappling with these standards of conduct and feeling offers invaluable practice in the art of hauling up and putting an end to particular sources of self-made distress, they are not the root cause of that distress. For that a longer line is needed, and greater courage still. We shall return to the hunt for Moby Dick in a little while.

      So far we have begun to explore the Buddhist insight that much of what we are trying to fix up and escape from is in fact home-made. But surely, you will probably have been wanting to say for a while, not all of our distress is avoidable with a change of attitude? I can see what you mean about shame and jealousy, but what about the real pain in the world? What does Buddhism have to say about that?

      Many people in the well-protected, affluent West, especially those like myself who are not old enough to have lived through the Second World War, have so far been spared the direct experience of pain and death. I remember my first encounter with a Zen Master, Asahina Sogen, who was at the time abbot of one of the most famous Zen temples in Japan, Engakuji in Kamakura. He asked me one or two polite questions, and then, out of the blue, enquired whether my parents were still alive. I told him they were, and he said how lucky I was, and went on to talk about how the death of his parents when he was just a boy, and the need to understand the grief he felt, had precipitated him onto the Buddhist path.

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