A World at War with Itself
The podcast will be for a year, where Julie Finch-Scally, writer and broadcaster can interview people about life and the current situation of the world. She will discuss how so many things have changed over the past 80 years since her birth, and what the world needs to change to improve and save the planet from ourselves.
A World at War with Itself
Buddhism
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What is Buddhism all about? Does it have any similarities to other religions? Amazingly, yes. The number 40 rings a bell.
Hello there, this is Julie Finch Scalli with you again for another episode of A World of War with Itself. This week I am continuing on the category of religion and asking similar questions as with previous discussions so we can discover the similarities and differences between them. Today I have in the studio with me Trish Carroll, who is a has a master's degree in applied Buddhism, and that's amazing. Welcome Trish, lovely to have you here.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Julie. I'm glad to be here.
SPEAKER_01When I was young, Buddhism was always considered to be an Asian religion. Now, is this correct?
SPEAKER_00That certainly is the starting of Buddhism. The Buddha grew up in India, and so yes, in that sense it it is actually very much Asian. But of course, it has transmogrified, I'm not sure what the word is, to many, many different countries around the world. So I would say it is no longer considered to be strictly an Asian religion. Do you know how it began? Oh, absolutely. Would you like to tell us, please? Yes, of course. Um it started with a man who was Gottmah, and he was a prince, and he lived in his father's palace, and he was very well off. But he was a very bright man, and he decided that he needed to look elsewhere outside of his father's palace in order to understand life. And he saw a sick man, he saw an old man, and he saw a body, as well as a wandering ascetic. And in looking at those four people, he began to be quite dissatisfied with what his life was in the palace. And so he gave that all up and he began his search for freedom and liberation. His question was, why is there suffering in the world? Why are people like this? What happens? So he began his journey, and he under the Bodhi tree in India, he found enlightenment, and then he started to teach, and that's when Buddhism sort of started and and began to spread. What are the basic idealisms of Buddhism? Well, I guess like any religion, caring, love, compassion, and wisdom are the basic ideals. But Buddhism comes at things from a very different perspective. And what the Buddha was saying was that we do not see reality as it is. And he characterized reality in three ways, with three characteristics. One that it's impermanent, everything changes, and not just the sort of seasons and our aging and those sort of fairly gross levels, but deeper into us, that we are not these single solitary beings that we think we are. Everything changes in us, everything changes around us. And this, because it's impermanent, we have nothing to rely on. We cannot grasp at something and say, Yes, this is real, this is I can ground myself in this. So it ca that which causes suffering or dissatisfaction with the world. So that's the second characteristic of reality. And the third is that everything is like nature, everything is impersonal, that there is no self that we hang on to that and we carry forward with us. It all shifts and changes. And it's like the weather. And so he discovered that, or at least came to that conclusion, and then sort of began to teach around those characteristics. The four noble truths there is suffering in the world. The cause of suffering is clinging, hanging on to something. There is a way out of that suffering. And the way out of that suffering is through a particular path that he developed and asks us to experiment with and to see whether it works. And does that path, is it different for different people? Sort of outline that the Buddha gave is the same, but for every one of us, of course, it is different. Yes, because we all grew up and we're conditioned very differently. And so for each of us, yes, it is it is different.
SPEAKER_01Did you believe in reincarnation? Because you're saying that personality inside you changes, but the personality when it dies, well what do they believe then?
SPEAKER_00For many, especi particularly Asian um Buddhists, they believe in rebirth. So that something, and that's a whole controversial thing about what continues in the next life, but that we come to the end of our body, of bodily life, and then we move into another body and continue on until we come to full liberation, if that's where we're going in our path. So, yes, many Buddhists do believe in rebirth and in that form. Many, especially Western Buddhists, find that difficult to to actually come to terms with because it's not part of our upbringing. Um, for myself, I I think I previously thought, no, it that doesn't work for me. But I'm coming c much, much closer to it now in the sense of of feeling that something moves on.
SPEAKER_01It makes logical sense to me because then you get retribution in the next life for what you did to be. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And Buddhists of course believe in karma, which is consequences of our actions. So if we're doing something wrong, bad, then there will be some effect, some consequence of that. And sometimes those things happen immediately, sometimes they happen in a month or two months, and sometimes in many Buddhists' minds they happen in the next lifetime.
SPEAKER_01Now, do you hold weekly services like other religions, or is there a specific day of the week that you put aside for something?
SPEAKER_00Not really, no. In many respects we come together to meditate, most of us, and that's that grouping of people who come together, the grouping of monks, the grouping of nuns, is called a Sangha. It's a a community. And uh they do uh particularly, I guess, Asian Buddhists have particular ceremonial days. So down at the temple in Narabunda, they will have particular days where all the community gets together and has various rituals and various things that they uh put on and perform. But mostly it's a very individual kind of thing, and uh we don't have necessarily any particular day that we get together. And uh for many people, especially in the West, they don't have a community because there aren't temples. So they they do their meditation, their whatever rituals that that they perform on their own.
SPEAKER_01They do them at home, do they? I mean, 'cause I've been in houses and I've seen people have a a little not like an altar, but it's similar to that in a separate place of the house.
SPEAKER_00Yes, many Asian families will have a a special area with the Buddha and they bring food and offerings to the Buddha, and they may do some meditation there. In particular in the West, we we would do our meditation in that in that sort of space.
SPEAKER_01What what actually takes part with meditation?
SPEAKER_00Meditation is actually one of the m central aspects of Buddhism, and what that is is going internally into the mind. Because what Buddhism is about is training the mind, actually moving the mind from um being, you know, kind of totally caught up with itself and anger and all these things, and loosening all of that. And what we do is we may sit on in cross-legged, I can't, but or on a chair, wherever. And we quieten the mind. We we we start with the breath, we go into the breath, and we begin to quiet the mind. So we get lots and lots of groups now that are doing what I might call secular mindfulness, but that comes out of Buddhism. And that's the mind training. Going into the mind and settling the mind so that the mind becomes more pliable and more able to take in wholesome qualities. Does it make you feel better? Oh my goodness to me, yes. Doesn't always, I mean, it's a lot of people look at me and say, Oh, I can't meditate because my mind just goes round. Yeah, I have that problem. That that's true for me too, and especially at the beginning. But it's working with that and and just allowing that to happen, but going back to the breath, constantly going back to the breath. And so slowly the mind will begin to to settle.
SPEAKER_01Um and now I'm sure most of my listeners will be aware that there is a Torah for Jews, a Bible for Christians, and a Quran for Islamic people. Is there a specific book for Buddhists?
SPEAKER_00Yes, in in a in a in a sentence or a a word. It comes the book of books of Buddhism. It's called the Canon or Pali Canon. There are a number of books, and what they hold are the discourses of the Buddha, the talks of the Buddha. Because in Buddhist days, in his time, it was an oral tradition. So he would go around for for 40 years he went and taught. He had groups of monks who would be with him, he would teach them, he would teach lay people, but it would all be oral tradition. And what happened after he died, there were certain monks who were very skilled at remembering, and so they got together and they actually recited the hundreds and hundreds of talks that the Buddha gave. And this became the basis of the Pali Canon, as it's called, and they're called the discourses of the Buddha, the this the talks. They're probably somewhat truncated, but that's what he said and what he taught, and yes, it's it's there. But it's very dense and very can be quite difficult to understand.
SPEAKER_01I was interested you said he went around for forty years. It's interesting that the forty comes up because Christ is supposed to have gone up for forty days, and and I think there's something also in Jewish to do with with forty days. Yeah, it's it's an an interesting factor. There's a similarity there somewhere. The title of the building where you worship or where you meditate, you've called it a temple, but does it have another name?
SPEAKER_00Not really. It's often in monastery or a place where where the the monks live. It's the shrine room. So it's it's the room, the big room where there is a big Buddha and not much else. In some traditions, particularly Tibetan traditions, they have a lot of ornamentation around. In the tradition that I'm from, which is Theravadan, we don't have many objects, mainly the the Buddha.
SPEAKER_01You said you've got a large Buddha, and I've been in your temple and I've seen that Buddha, he's rather big. And you see that on the news all the time when they're showing you different temples. Why do they have that Buddha there in the first place?
SPEAKER_00Um, in many respects, it's a symbol of respect. It's just a symbol of the Buddha. It's not we bow to the Buddha when we come into the temple and when we leave, but it's not a bowing to a god. It's a bowing to say, hello, I'm here. And it's a bow that says, I I really am so grateful for the teachings of the Buddha. That's why it's there and why it's central, because he was central to all.
SPEAKER_01So you're not really praying the Buddha.
SPEAKER_00No, there are traditions of offerings to the Buddha, and often that is within the Asian communities. There are rituals and traditions, particularly within the Asian community, where they don't do the meditation, they they do those kinds of things. It's still not a prayer as such to a god.
SPEAKER_01You don't think it may be more like a social mor that was around before Buddhism came?
SPEAKER_00Not really. I think it's again an honouring and a respect to this person who brought such wonder to the world. But I really don't know what might be happening within that community or within those people's maestro.
SPEAKER_01And is there any worship to a supreme being, or do you not believe in a supreme being?
SPEAKER_00No, no. Buddha was a human being. No, there is no supreme being as such.
SPEAKER_01So the person who sort of leads your temple, do they have a title?
SPEAKER_00There are communities around, and often those communities are in temples. They may be led by meditation teachers, or they may be led by a head monk or a head nun. They don't really have particular titles that I'm aware of. I guess abbot, which they often are called abbots, which is an interesting you know thing in terms of Christianity. But they're not They're not called teacher or anything like that. Oh y yes, bante is is the the Pali word for for teacher, so yes, they can be referred to as teachers as teachers. And can they be the male or female? Yes, because in female, you know, when you have a group of nuns, then the the abbot or abatefs, I guess I'm not sure if that's what she's called, would would be a a a female, yes.
SPEAKER_01I understand that and you've talked about it, the Buddhism's practiced by the Tibetans and they have the Dalai Lama as a leader. Uh would this be classified as a splinter group? And are there lots of splinter groups in Buddhism?
SPEAKER_00I wouldn't call them splinter groups.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00What happened was the Buddha taught in his in India, and then after he died, all the monks would go out teaching. And so a number of them went to China. So then you got a the development of Chan Buddhism in China. Some of them moved over to Japan, and you get Zen Buddhism in Japan. And some of them came down into Thailand and Vietnam, and you have another which is the Therapan view, which is the the group I belong to, developed there. It sort of spread, and uh what happens with Buddhism is when it moves into a new country, it actually takes up many of the traditions that are in that country. And it happens with the other religions as well. Yes, I'm sure it does. And so each of those sort of regional areas are slightly different.
SPEAKER_01They have their own version of the same thing. Yes, yes, exactly. And it doesn't cause a problem as far as the Buddhism itself. I mean, if you practice something a little different to somebody else, does there any animosity between people?
SPEAKER_00Generally, I would say no. Because the religion is deeply steeped in care and deeply steeped in caring and kind to other people. But human beings are human beings, and so you do get individual differences and and and um slight schisms. So as as as much as there is human beings, yes.
SPEAKER_01I understand that there are Buddhists all around the world now. Um is the Buddhist religion actually growing and the numbers follows increasing? Would you have an idea about that?
SPEAKER_00I really don't know. Maybe this is wishful thinking in the sense of wanting it to increase and to grow. It it seems that it's one religion that a lot of people, because of its emphasis on peace and its emphasis on non-attachment to things, that a lot of people find some solace in it. In a in a sanctuary, yeah. Yes. And so my thoughts about it are that it is growing, but I'm I really don't have any clue about facts or figures on that. No, I have no facts or figures on that. Yes. And part of that is of course because it grew, uh or at least the idea of meditation and mindfulness has become very popular in the West. And so lots of people s start in that practice, a wonderful practice, and then move into the spiritual aspects, the deeper aspects of Buddhism from that base. So my inclination is that it is growing and people are very interested in it.
SPEAKER_01That's been fantastic, and thank you so much, Trish, for this conversation. I have learned a lot about Buddhism today, and I hope my listeners found it just as interesting as I did. I appreciate you taking the time to come in and talk with me. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00You're most welcome. And and may I just say thank you for your invitation to do this. And also just may there be peace in the world.
SPEAKER_01Oh gosh, I think we all wish for that. And we all know it's never gonna happen completely and utterly, but it's a nice idea to have. I've been speaking with Trish Carroll this morning, and do join me next week for another episode of A World at War With Itself. Until then, this is Julie Finch Scully saying goodbye.