Dharma As Good Medicine
By Rev. Gene Bush
“Carefully listen everyone
Twenty-five centuries, sixty three years ago the Tathagata entered nirvana.
When this day is gone, your life also decreases.
Like a fish in a puddle, what pleasure is there here?”
Of course you understand that this is talking about the urgency of the moment, the necessity of abiding in our deepest truth as a place of joy and stability, even as we recognize transience. This is both for our personal and collective responses to the need for shelter-in-place, our personal and collective responses to the ever-more-evident social and environmental issue of our time.
I continue to read of inspiring moments between protestors and police, painful moments between protestors and police. After an incident with a sheriff at a demonstration in which the sheriff spoke clearly about supporting and encouraging the expression of pain and frustration then took action to join, not fight, the protestors, this appeared in a mainstream media commentary: [THIS]… “is how we change a system that murdered George Floyd. It requires mindfulness of our actions and beliefs. [THIS SHERIFF] exemplifies the deputies and officers I know and respect. Community-first mentality and lead by example. This is a mindful action. This is change."
By citing this incident, I will be accused by some in my circle of focusing on virtue signaling by partially informed liberal white people. I acknowledge that even while I see that this level of articulation about race is hopeful, maybe even overly optimistic, I also acknowledge that the wounds are deep and the habitual behavior of individuals and institutions is long-engrained, and will require great determination to change. But I can’t not notice that vocabulary that we normally hear in a Buddhist context is being used in the secular world; and that comments that I once considered to be radical are now part of the mainstream. Even at a simple level the Dharma is recognized as good medicine: put the community first, lead by example, take mindful action.
Good medicine indeed.
And it is required of us that we identify the illness, dis-ease, un-ease that we are attempting to treat with this medicine, as different conditions require different treatments.
This dis-integration, this falling apart we experience, is part of the process of transformation. What doors of transformation are opening? The habitual is outdated; there is no need to return to normal, as normal is part of the problem. The decades of efforts in social justice and environmental action – the movements, the demonstrations, the consciousness raising, the education – come to fruit now. We must respond in the present moment to the actual conditions in which we find ourselves. Let us be guided by the ancestors.
Again and again in our tradition, in the many teachings over centuries, the elders have returned to the teachings of the Buddha.
- Practice empathetic joy, compassion, equanimity and loving kindness
- Cultivate a life of few desires, contentment, serenity, diligence, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom
- Let one be strenuous, upright and sincere, without pride, easily contented and joyous; be mild and not arrogant;
- Follow this 8-fold path of upright view, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration
These are all antidotes to suffering – what do they have in common? – the requirement of personal effort, the need for dropping self concern.