Soon after his Enlightenment the Buddha had a vision in which he saw the human race as a bed of lotus flowers. Some of the lotuses were still enmired in the mud, others were just emerging from it, and others again were on the point of blooming. In other words, all people had the ability to unfold their potential and some needed just a little help to do so. So the Buddha decided to teach, and all of the teachings of Buddhism may be seen as attempts to fulfil this vision — to help people grow towards Enlightenment.
Buddhism sees life as a process of constant change, and its practices aim to take advantage of this fact. It means that one can change for the better. The decisive factor in changing oneself is the mind, and Buddhism has developed many methods for working on the mind. Most importantly, Buddhists practise meditation, which is a way of developing more positive states of mind that are characterised by calm, concentration, awareness, and emotions such as friendliness. Using the awareness developed in meditation it is possible to have a fuller understanding of oneself, other people, and of life itself. Buddhists do not seek to ‘evangelise’ or coerce other people to adopt their religion, but they do seek to make its teachings available to whoever is interested, and people are free to take
as much or as little as they feel ready for.
Read Guide To The Buddhist Path by Sangharakshita.
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Buddhism is a path of practice and spiritual development leading to Insight into the true nature of reality. Buddhist practices like meditation are means of changing yourself in order to develop the qualities of awareness, kindness, and wisdom. The experience developed within the Buddhist tradition over thousands of years has created an incomparable resource for all those who wish to follow a path — a path which ultimately culminates in Enlightenment or Buddhahood. An enlightened being sees the nature of reality absolutely clearly, just as it is, and lives fully and naturally in accordance with that vision. This is the goal of the Buddhist spiritual life, representing the end of suffering for anyone who attains it.
Because Buddhism does not include the idea of worshipping a creator god, some people do not see it as a religion in the normal, Western sense. The basic tenets of Buddhist teaching are straightforward and practical: nothing is fixed or permanent; actions have consequences; change is possible. So Buddhism addresses itself to all people irrespective of race, nationality, caste, sexuality, or gender. It teaches practical methods which enable people to realise and use its teachings in order to transform their experience, to be fully responsible for their lives.
There are around 350 million Buddhists and a growing number of them are Westerners. They follow many different forms of Buddhism, but all traditions are characterised by non-violence, lack of dogma, tolerance of differences, and, usually, by the practice of meditation.
At our Buddhist centres the Mindfulness of Breathing, the Development of Loving-kindness (Metta Bhavana) and Just Sitting are the main meditation practices taught. In addition to walking meditation, reflection and devotional practices, these are the primary meditations up to the point of ordination into the Triratna Buddhist Order. This is because concentration, mindfulness and emotional positivity are the essential basis for meditation. Our approach emphasises the importance of steadily developing the qualities one needs to meditate.
At the point of ordination, which is a wholehearted commitment to make Dharma practice the core of one’s life, Order members usually take up a meditation on a Buddha or Bodhisattva. They also take on Insight meditation practices — such as contemplating Conditionality, or the insubstantiality of the Six Elements of mind and body.
The Triratna system of meditation can be seen as a consecutive set of meditations that you progress along, or as a ‘mandala’ a circle or spiral of practices, which you go around in order to approach the centre, Enlightenment. In fact, this system reflects the two main approaches to meditation found in virtually all Buddhist schools: samatha (‘calming’)
and vipassana (‘insight’), plus Just Sitting, which in a sense isn’t a practice at all but is simply allowing whatever happens to happen, in awareness.
In the Triratna system, the calming approaches are described as ‘integration’ and ‘positive emotion’ (most often put into practice as, respectively, Mindfulness of Breathing and Metta Bhavana), while the insight approaches are ‘spiritual death’ and ‘spiritual rebirth’.
All of these practices are followed by Just Sitting — so there is a pattern of activity then letting-go, or making effort followed by receptivity. This dynamic is very important in mitigating two possibly unhelpful directions: wilful, goal-oriented striving on the one hand, or vagueness and spacing-out on the other.
