[music] Dharma Vites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and happy listening. [music] Now to begin with, you'll notice no doubt that one speaks of Buddhist life. And this draws our attention to a very important fact indeed. The fact that Buddhism is concerned with life. Or one might even say that Buddhism itself is life. That it is spiritual life, spiritual life in the sense of the higher evolution about which we spoke quite a number of weeks ago. So if Buddhism is life, especially spiritual life, the higher evolution, one expects that a Buddhist is one who is at least a life. One who is at least spiritually alive, or one who is participating in the higher evolution. I don't want to be very personal, but in some cases one finds one goes apart from place to place looking at Buddhists. Some of them at least, one would hardly think that a Buddhist was one who was alive. Sometimes one gets the feeling of meetings that people are just there. They may be physically there, but not mentally, not spiritually there. They're not really alive to the meeting, not really alive to what is being said. Not even alive to one another, and one might even say, not even alive to themselves. But this is really the most important thing at all, the most necessary thing. To begin with, someone who calls himself a herself a Buddhist should be alive, should vibrate as it were, with life of a more spiritual quality. Everything else one might say is completely secondary. They might say by way of a little reminiscence in passing, that this is one of the reasons why, when I was in India, I was so much attracted by the movement of conversion to Buddhism among the ex-untouchables, and why I became so deeply involved in it. It's quite true that they were very poor, in fact are very poor, true that their economic condition is miserable, that they're largely illiterate, and that they have been depressed for centuries. But at least one thing one finds amongst them, and that is, they have plenty of enthusiasm, they're completely alive. When you go to a meeting of these people, or when you go to a village of these people, you find that they're very, very much alive, and that their involvement with Buddhism means a sort of enhancement, a refinement of that life which they do already have. I can remember, as I think I often say, scores of occasions on which I've been to villages where these ex-untouchables converted to Buddhism live, sometimes when you go by train and then by bus and then by bullock cart, then you go on foot, perhaps, and eventually you get to the village. But before you get to the village, what happens? You're about two miles away, very often, and you're received by a party of people, and the tradition is, in those parts, they dance you into the village. They're so enthusiastic, they're so pleased that you've come, that they sound long-brass trumpets, and you get a party of 20, 30, 40 young men and older men too. No women, all men, with castanets, and they dance you into the village with a very, very energetic sort of dance, with lots of stampings and banging of tambourines and rattling of castanets and all that sort of thing. And you really do get the impression that they're very, very glad to see you, that you're coming amongst them really means something. They put flags out, especially the five-coloured Buddhist flag, some of them decorate their houses, some of them make all sorts of chalk designs in front of their doors, all that sort of thing. And when they finally come together for the meeting, very late at night usually, everyone is interested, everyone is keen. Even the small children feel that, well, we're going to hear something about Buddhism, and this is a special occasion, and they're very, very enthusiastic and very, very inner word alive. But when one comes back to this country, I know we have our own traditions, we have our own customs and our own way of doing things, but still one can't help feeling a very great contrast. You're certainly not welcomed with tambourines and castanets, at least I wasn't. But when I arrived at the airport, I were just two or three people to meet me, and I was taken in a car through the streets of London, derived here, and that was that. And sooner or later I started giving my lectures and taking classes and so on. And one does sometimes feel, even though one admits that the Buddhist movement in this country is very small, one I might even say microscopic. One does sometimes feel that it could be just a little bit more alive. That those who call themselves Buddhist or who are interested in Buddhism could be perhaps just a little bit more enthusiastic. We've noticed this, as I've mentioned before, on the occasion of Vaishanka. Certainly we noticed that last year, not so much this year at the public meeting, not here, but elsewhere, we noticed there wasn't perhaps quite enough enthusiasm or joy or real spirit of the occasion. Now we know that conditions in this country, conditions in the West generally, are very, very difficult. It's not easy to be enthusiastic. It's not easy to bubble as it were with spiritual life. There are all sorts of factors which meditate against that sort of thing. And not least, we may say, most people are in the grip, one might say the deadly grip of routine. I wonder if you've ever thought how much of your life, so a larger part of your life is really dominated, even dictated just by the pattern of routine. Now, today's Sunday, so you're a bit free. Tomorrow's week Monday, so you really are off the leash this week, as it's rare. But Tuesday, what happens on Tuesday? Most of you go back to the office, back to your household choice. Two of you do this, wait until you do that, third of you do something else, right? You go to see somebody, Saturday you do your shopping, and Sunday you rest. And there are two weeks every year you have your little holiday, and that goes on year after year. Then when you reach age of 60 or 65, whatever it is nowadays, you retire, start drawing your old age pension or senior citizens pension, as they call it nowadays. And in that way, the whole of life goes on just one long, apparently everlasting routine. You're just doing the same sort of thing over and over and over again, and that is your life. A continual pattern of repetition, and one is in the grip of this one, can't break out of it. Even if I wanted to, there are all sorts of commitments, all sorts of responsibilities, all sorts of things you have to do on certain dates, places you have to be on certain dates, even thoughts you have to think on certain dates, or even emotions you have to feel on certain dates, or even certain hours. So your whole life is sort of gripped by this rather deadly routine. So in circumstances like this, how is it possible to be spontaneous, to bubble with spiritual life? A routine one might say kills spontaneity, and without spontaneity, there is very little life indeed. One might even go so far as to say that life in fact is spontaneity. Spontaneity is life. However, grave as the problem may be, difficult as it may be to solve, the awareness of the problem is always the first step towards its actual solution. So we won't say anything more about that this afternoon. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]
