Buddhist Themes

We live in a world filled with human desires -- whether these be the desires of affluent people for more goods, of poor people for basic goods, of terrorists who kill themselves and others for the sake of a supposed greater good, or the desires of those who oppose terrorism.

What desires should we follow, and which should we reject? To put this quaintly but directly, could we learn to turn down the heat, and live not in the hot house of desire, but in houses of moderate temperature?

Buddhism, with its philosophy of awareness and non-attachment, enables people to view their experience in a manner which is universal in scope, yet involves no religious or philosophical credos. The attitude is simple, yet the effect is profound.

Quotating from the Introduction: "Through simple mindfulness of where one's mind and body "is" at any given time, one become aware that holding on to one's conceptions and fixed attitudes causes suffering. Thus, we overcome attachment and desire by simply becoming mindful of it, and then releasing it, in a non-judgmental way. Mindfulness of the rise and fall of desire, and the movement of one's own judging mind in meditation and in activity, is then, central to the Buddhist attitude about human experience."

A person's mindfulness of strong emotions, and an ability to watch their rise and fall, and not to act on them, assumes universal significance. It is really part of one's character building, which, in turn, ought to be part of nation building. Since nations are composed of citizens (a word that has mostly been replaced the the word, "consumer"), one's willingness to practice mindfulness on their own strong emotions and not to necessarily act on them, provides nothing less than a universal civilizing influence in the world.

~Paul Dolinsky