Can Buddhism bring you happiness?

From time to time I have a look at the statistics page for our web site and there I can find what search phrases people are entering. One caught my attention this morning: “Can Buddhism make you happy?” It is interesting as the other day when I was on the train in Sydney a young woman sitting opposite me was looking intently at the bag I was carrying, you know, the type of bag that the Chinese Buddhist monks carry. It was given to me by my teacher. I sensed she wanted to say something and just at that very moment she asked: “Is that a Buddhist bag?” I replied that it is. Then she asked: “Some people say Buddhism makes you happy and peaceful. Is that true?” I did not have time to finish me answer when she had to alight at the next station.

I am no master or guru and my journey in Buddhism has only been for a short six years so I can only respond to such a question from experience rather than doctrine which I still stumble over from time to time. I reflect back at my own journey and it was my own deep unhappiness due to a relationship breakdown that was one of the catalysts for me to seek out Buddhism. I had been in a relationship for one year with a lady I had met in Australia when a year almost to the date later she phoned me to say: “I am sorry I have not been able to bring myself to say this but I am married.” I felt crushed, depressed, angry, hurt and a plethora of other feelings. I guess what shocked me more than anything else was my capacity to become so depressed. As a result I did psychotherapy, meditation, valium, yoga, walking, qigong, RET. You name it; I did it. Finally I met someone who introduced me to Pure Land Buddhism. Then I found happiness? No! However, it made sense to me. Nothing else had made any sense. It had a clear explanation as to why I was feeling the way I was and a clear and logical way out of it.

No ‘-ism’ can give you happiness. Further I am not sure we would know happiness if we found it. Our understanding of happiness appears so distorted that this seems part of the problem. Inner peace and happiness can’t be pre-packaged. Run on down to K-Mart, buy a Buddha statue, place it in the lounge room to change the Fung Shi and eternal happiness and prosperity will come flowing. Well, I have news for you; it won’t, at least not in the long term.

Buddhism can be understood as a Life Education. It has a rational explanation as to why we are in a state of unhappiness and has clear methods to allow ourselves to up-skill. Ignorance is one of the biggest blocks to living a happy and peaceful life. The antidote for ignorance is education. Many mistake Buddhism for Meditation. While meditation is certainly an integral part it is still only part of the story. Without first knowing why we came into the state we are in then any meditation will only give partial results at the best. The four Noble Truths of Buddhism outlines the syllabus, if you like. The first of the Four Noble Truths tells us our condition. The second tells us why we are in that condition. The third and fourth show us a way forward. Lasting happiness and inner peace can only come through a thorough knowledge of our condition.

As Buddhists we often refer to our practice of Buddhism. Like any new skill it takes practice. No top sports person becomes so overnight. It takes years of hard training to gain success in a particular sport. In our practise of Buddhism we must apply equal effort.

Within a few months of my beginning steps in Buddhism I felt a calmness pervade my life for the first time. It was a calmness of knowing that happiness was now in my own hands, or rather in my own mind and that I had at my disposal a set of time honoured and tested skills to put into diligent practise.

I have not reached Nirvana. I am far, far away from that and for me it is not important. What is important is that maybe I can show others a path that when applied with diligence and effort can bring results – an abiding happiness and inner peace – and maybe I have done some good.

Finding Happiness and Inner Peace

A window to inner peace

Many people come to retreat at Guang Jue Temple looking for happiness and inner peace. Interestingly enough I find that many who come to Guang Jue have had recent relationship break downs and are searching for something deeper and more meaningful. However, will they find what they are looking for?

Many people in the West have turned to Buddhism hoping to find the elixir to eternal happiness hoping that a life of silent meditation will be some sort of anaesthetic for their pain. Many tell me that they have tried this religion or that religion, tried Yoga or this style of meditation or that way of meditation as if attending a buffet restaurant hoping that their hunger for happiness and inner peace will eventually be satisfied. We hope for the right type of person for a relationship and then we hope that we can get out of that relationship some years later when the romance rubs off and the issues arise! What often bring us what we think is “freedom” often leads us eventually into “pain”. So the never ending cycle of suffering continues.

How do we end this cycle of suffering? Come in to a retreat? Retreats are wonderful and part of our practice. However, as long as we need to return to our daily life in the big city we will be confronted by the same demands and problems over and over again. Chant and perform rituals? Chanting is an essential part of our Pure Land practise. However, it is a “part” and not the whole. Study and apply the bits of Buddhism that feel good? This seems to be an ever increasing issue of taking the selective parts of Buddhism that serve our immediate purposes without going deeper into ourselves.

Naikan meditation is a meditation that takes us deeper into ourselves by helping us see not only the giftedness of life but the obstruction to this gift by our own egos. Naikan is underpinned by three questions that guide out inner examination: (1) What have I received from X? (2) What have I given to X? (3) What problems and difficulties have I caused X? You can almost cut the atmosphere with a knife when students come to the third question. The ego begins to stamp its feet, avoid, intellectualize and do everything under the sun to stand its ground. As long as “I” am in there looking out at the rest of life then my practise is foiled and the unending cycle of suffering continues.

Anatta, or “no permanently abiding self or soul” is at the very heart of the Buddha’s teachings. However as Rodney Smith in The Undivided Mind puts it : “With our Western emphasis on psychological health it is perhaps inevitable that this essential aspect of the teaching is downplayed or even avoided. Emptiness, after all, stands in opposition to many of our most important values such as self-reliance, individual initiative, and the pursuit of pleasure. We want the contentment, happiness and inner peace promised by the Buddha, but with “me” fully stabilized and intact.”

I have often heard retreat participants say that they have come into retreat “to find their true selves”. We often have a notion that lurking somewhere deep inside of us is a “true self” which is somehow in opposition to the ego! A true practitioner of Buddhism understands that there is no such thing as a true, substantial, independent self. This type of self is the self of grasping. As the Venerable Master Jen-Chun reminds us: “The Bodhisattva makes offerings to all sentient beings with a pure selfless mind”

To find true happiness and inner peace requires us to generate Great Bodhi-Mind through the great Bodhi practice and this in turn requires us to make radical changes in our life. The Venerable Master Jen-Chun in his collection of Dharma talks speaks of Great Change, Thorough Change and Immediate Change. The habits that we have acquired throughout our life time that actively encourage and support the ego must change. We must make mental examination of these habits and with a determined mind make immediate changes. This is not about changing relationships like changing our socks. Buddhism is better practised in the thick of life in the midst of our relationships with one another. The change that must be made can only be made deep within ourselves.

Changes can not be made by watering down the dharma. It is only through the wisdom of the ageless Dharma given to us by the Buddha that we are able to apply the teachings. Without dharma wisdom we are like a sailing boat trying to navigate the immense ocean without sails or compass.

Pure Land Buddhism gives us the most expedient method to apply to our changes. Through constant mindfulness of the Amitabha Buddha through the verbal and mental reciting of his name we begin to purify the mind cutting through all delusion. Through concentrated effort in our Pure Land practise we begin to make changes and develop the Bodhi-mind following the steps and example of the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin. In this are found true and lasting happiness and an abiding inner peace.

A Pure Land Buddhist Master of Faith and Simplicity

When I first asked Master Zheng Rong to teach me the way of Pure Land Buddhism his response was for me to read about it in books. He waved his hand stating: “Books can teach you more than I can”. At first I felt a little put off by his remark. It wasn’t until some time later I was able to appreciate the depth of his humility and simplicity, two of my hardest lessons.

Humility is a great gift of so many Chinese Buddhist teachers. So, I would need to observe and observe closely. I intuitively knew that opportunities would arise.

The Venerable Zheng Rong is abbot of the Guang Jue Monastery of the Pure Land school in China. He is a man of great faith and simplicity.

I remember once reading about the life of butterflies in a book I had borrowed from the library. It was not until I sat still in the garden and observed the butterflies and their life that I really began to understand them. In a similar way I needed to be in the garden of the dharma to really understand. It was not until I lived and worked side by side with Master Zheng Rong that I began to understand his teachings.

I do not know a lot about his formative years as a monk. He does not think this important. It is the “now” moment that really counts. He has a dream for the future but again that is very grounded in reality of the present.

The Venerable Zheng Rong is immersed in daily life. He is not a monastic figure removed from public life behind the walls of a monastery. It is common to see him riding back from the small town of Zaoxi on the back of someone’s motorbike robes flapping in the wind with a cheeky grin on his face. He loves life. Other times you may see him ambling along the rural road chatting to farmers or townsfolk as he passes by. On another occasion I was walking with him to Zaoxi town to catch a bus to Lin’An when we came across a farmer’s truck broken down in the middle of the road. It seemed this poor fellow needed a push-start. Master Zheng Rong motioned to me to help him push the truck. Passing motorists seemed aghast at the sight of the Venerable pushing a truck and eventually one stopped to help. Dharma in action!

This is Pure Land Buddhism. These and many more were the valuable lessons I was to learn from my Master. Pure Land is about full engagement into life. After all, the Amitabha Buddha is the Buddha of infinite life and light. It is not just about some heavenly realm we may happen to enter into at the end of our days. Pure Land is something that can be very present and very real right now.

Unfortunately our world has become very polluted and overcome with many natural disasters and tragedies. Unfortunately most of us dismiss them as “natural” disasters without seriously contemplating the real meaning of the word. Master Zheng Rong speaks of the as disasters which are ordered by a natural law of cause and effect. It is because humankind has become polluted in mind that the seeds of the causes and conditions are planted that give rise to such human calamities.

On occasions Master Zheng Rong will speak with great animation about the Buddha’s teaching about everything arising from the mind and the necessity to plant seeds of purity and goodness.

One morning I met Master Zheng Rong dusting around the Maitreya Bodhisattva at the first temple hall. Master was smiling at the “Happy Buddha” as he is often referred to in the West. It is no mistake that this Bodhisattva is the first one we meet when entering the temple. He sits there with a broad and welcoming grin. His big belly is symbolic of the big heart and happiness that comes from following the dharma. In his right hand he holds Mala beads symbolic of the need to follow the dharma if we are to follow the Buddha Way and the ensuing happiness of life. My Master finishes dusting around the statue and smiles gently at me. He gestures to the Maitreya Boddhisattva and says in Chinese: “Hen Hao” . . .”very good.” Dusting done, the day begins. Another deep lesson in Pure Land.

Malcolm Hunt is an international Mindfulness Trainer and Retreat Facilitator at Guang Jue Monastery, Zaoxi, Zhejiang Province, China and Sydney Australia

The Chinese Temple of Faith from the Ruins

Guang Jue Temple is situated in Zhejiang Province, China, West of Hangzhou on the fringes on a small rural town called Zaoxi. The temple is surrounded by bamboo forested mountains amidst nature and tranquility.

It dates back to the Qing Dynasty to the late 1700’s. In those times some 200 monks and nuns lived there. Devotees came from as far as Shanghai to worship and celebrate major Buddhist festivals. It was the centre of community life.

Sadly Guang Jue was largely destroyed in 1952 during the Sino-Japanese war with all but one of the monks and nuns fleeing to safety. However, one remained to live amidst the ruins, faithfully continually chanting the Buddha Name and performing the daily chanting services in isolation. Locals were not inclined to go there during the later Cultural Revolution.

It was not until the late 1990’s that word about this nun reached Hangzhou and the Venerable Zheng Rong was despatched by his own Master to search for the nun and return her to the safety and teaching of an active Sangha. The Venerable Zheng Rong describes how he located her amid the ruins softly reciting the mala beads chanting the Buddha Amitabha’s name. He was brought to tears at the sight of such intense devotion. He eventually persuaded her that the war was over and to return to Hangzhou to be under the care and teaching of a Venerable.

It was a day or so before Master Zheng Rong could return by bus to Hangzhou so he stayed on at the site of the ruins. On his first night he had a dream. In that dream the Amitabha Buddha surrounded by intense light appeared to him and asked him to rebuild the temple. He describes how he was so struck by this vivid dream that he could not move. So he stayed. Over the ensuing years he gradually rebuilt the temples. There is only one temple now that is still in need of restoration.

Guang Jue stands as a testimony to unshakeable faith in Amitabha Buddha and a parable for our own lives. There are now only five monks who have joined the Master Zheng Rong. Each morning the large bell is sounded at 4:30am and reminds all who live in this sleepy valley that within spiritual faith lays great strength. There is no anger or hatred at what happened in the past – only love and compassion. At the centre of Master Zheng Rong’s teaching is the call to examine our thoughts and actions as these will form future consequences. Only thoughts and acts of love and peace will create love, peace and prosperity for our world.

There is a remarkable spiritual energy within the temple halls, an energy born from the continual chanting of one nun. All who come here feel it and are changed by it.

I have been honoured to be accepted as a disciple of the Venerable Zheng Rong and to be given the responsibility to carry forward the Pure Land teaching of compassion to all sentient beings. The Pure Land is not far from each of us for it is but one breath away in our minds. Each of us has the capacity to create the Pure Land here now in our midst building a world of peace and beauty for all peoples of all nations.

Zhe Shen (Malcolm Hunt)
Retreat Facilitator Guang Jue Monastery.