Risk-free Life

A new government proposal will require every parent who volunteers to drive children to a sports or cultural event on behalf of their local school or club to be CRB checked. Apparently, this means that as many as 11 ½ million parents may require CRB clearance in order to continue doing what they have  no doubt been doing for decades – generously offering their time and resources to enable kids to enjoy themselves. The rationale given for the legislation is that it will help protect children against sexual predators.

Given that I am not a parent, this new legislation is unlikely to affect me but, nevertheless, I find it a thoroughly depressing development. Why? There are two main reasons. The first is that it seems to further erode the assumption of trust upon which a healthy culture operates and the second is that it is further evidence of the mistaken belief that we can legislate risk out of life.

Our culture – and I think positive human relations in general – assumes that we are trustworthy until we show ourselves to be otherwise. This seems a crucial platform for a healthy society since without it we are left with a culture of suspicion, which inevitably corrodes social cohesion and even basic interaction. The new legislation treats every parent as a potential paedophile and it is up to them to prove that they are not through producing their CRB check. While I understand the desire to protect children and condemn those who exploit them sexually, nevertheless it seems a disproportionate response to the scale of the problem. One commentator claimed that even if it stopped one paedophile from carrying out an attack on children then the legislation would be worth it. I am not so sure: after all, at what cost?

You may think that I am over-reacting – it is just a CRB check, what is wrong with that? Better safe than sorry. However, part of the issue is that it feeds into an increasingly prevalent culture in which people are distrusted until they prove themselves not to be a risk. To create a culture where we are encouraged to see one another as potential threats seems to me very destructive of social relations. After all, what next? If I have a child who wants to visit his or her friend’s house, should I demand a CRB check of the child’s parents? This is certainly the direction in which we are heading.

My second concern about the legislation is that it seems to buy into the delusion that we can legislate risk out of life. This belief seems to underpin a gathering wave of regulation and legislation. So, for instance, when a child gets hurt playing a sport there is an immediate call for the sport to be banned. Or when someone is attacked by a dog, there is a call for all dogs to be banned, or for all dogs to be muzzled in public. In this case, the fear of a potential child sex attacker is so hysterical that every parent must be vetted to avoid this risk. But of course it won’t prevent it from happening. It is not possible to remove risk from life altogether, however hard we try. Seemingly, most sex attacks on children are carried out by relatives and trusted friends anyway – this legislation will do nothing to address this situation.

To believe that we can create a world in which no one is ever vulnerable, in which nothing bad will ever happen flies in the face of reality. Human life is fundamentally fragile; we could easily trip down the stairs and break our necks and people do. Should we ban staircases? Perhaps the more insidious dimension of believing that we can legislate risk away is that it produces a false sense of security. We believe that we have removed a risk when, in reality, we may have simply moved it elsewhere. Moreover, greater legislation brings further constrains upon personal liberty. Where will it stop?

Entering the world requires us to make ongoing acts of trust every day and to take risks each time we venture from our homes – and even when we are in them. Trust and calculated risk-taking are necessary elements in any expansive human life and the more we legislate against them, while we may protect ourselves from some threats we also erode the joy of living. Every situation becomes fraught with risk and danger rather than with opportunity and possibility, every encounter raises suspicion rather than interest and enthusiasm. I am not saying that risk cannot be reduced or that we should never take precautions against danger, only that we need to be realistic about how far we can reduce risk and that our precautions against it should be in line with the scale of the danger. Moreover, in introducing additional precautions we need to consider their broader implications in relation to the kind of culture we are creating.

Moaning Flu

Moaning is a highly destructive and infectious negative habit. No doubt most of us fall into it from time to time but moaning is also something that readily spreads, infecting those around us and even sowing the seeds for a culture of grumbling, complaining, and negativity. When we are with a moaner, almost as a means of showing our human solidarity, we can begin to find ourselves drawn into the moaning pit. We can end up egging each other on to greater and greater levels of moaning. It really is an insidious habit that draws us in. Why is this?

Moaning MyrtleIt seems to me that all – or at least most – of us have a certain quantum of negativity (as my teacher once called it) which seeks some form of expression. Moaning is an outlet for this negativity. Moreover, when we are talking to a moaner, this sparks off the negativity within us – the resentments, injustices, and frustrations that we feel can begin to rise to the surface. Before we know it, we are embroiled in a full-scale moanfest. But more than this, if this carries on unchecked we can begin to find ourselves participating in a culture of moaning where our primary means of relating to others is on the basis of our shared resentments.

It is evident that organisations of various types readily become the focus for our moaning tendency. It is far easier to escalate the vehemence of our complaints about an organisation than it is about an individual. First, in moaning about an organisation there is no single person held responsible and so there is no danger of thinking that we may be being mean or vindictive. It may not seem that we are causing any harm. Second, organisations often appear to have a great deal of power and we may feel relatively powerless; consequently it seems natural to kick against the power economy that we feel impoverished by. Third, no individual is held ultimately responsible for the organisation – it is a faceless bureaucracy and cannot answer back. We are not faced directly with the upset that our moaning may cause because it is not directed at a single individual. Finally, by displacing our problems on to an organisation we may evade our personal responsibility for resolving them.

None of this is to suggest that criticism and complaint is never legitimate; it is more a matter of the context and the spirit in which this is expressed. A moaner is not usually interested in improving or resolving issues; in fact, when faced with this opportunity they will usually moan that it won’t do any good, or won’t make any difference! A moaner just wants to moan. If we recognise that our communication affects others then we will see that our moaning will have a negative impact upon them; we will drag others down into our moaning pit. This underlines for me how we need to take care of our communication and ensure that we communicate on a skilful basis, rather than allow our unskilful tendencies free rein. It is important not only for ourselves but because our negativity ripples outwards, setting off other negative reactions and contributing towards an overall atmosphere in which we feel powerless, resentful, and embittered. Learning to recognise the moaner within – and without - and to resist colluding with him or her is a crucial aspect of developing more positive mental states and more creative human relations.

Entering a Mahayana Scripture - the Gandhavyuha Sutra

In previous posts, I have commented on my developing interest in how to read a Mahayana scripture, or sutra as they are known. Most recently, my attention has been drawn to the Gandavyuha Sutra and I have begun to explore some of its key themes.

Sudhana at the Feet of ManjushriWhile the Gandavyuha is not as well known as the Lotus Sutra or the Vimalakirti Sutra – at least in the West - it is nevertheless one of the great vaipulya sutras. Vaipulya means extensive and the Gandavyuha certainly is that: it runs to around 400 pages. Not just that but it forms the final chapter of an even larger text, the Avatamsaka Sutra, which in total is more than 1600 pages long.

Like most Mahayana sutras, the Gandavyuha began life in India and scholars believe that its core elements were composed between the 1^st and 3^rd centuries CE. Essentially, the Gandavyuha tells the story of a pilgrimage – that of the young man Sudhana who is on a quest for Awakening. Through the course of the text, Sudhana encounters a series of spiritual benefactors who each offer him a clue to help him on his journey. Ultimately, Sudhana approaches a mysterious and magical structure known as Vairochana’s Tower, which he enters to be transported into a mystical dimension, one in which all things mutually interpenetrate while, at the same time, maintaining their distinct individuality. This vision is at the heart of the Gandavyuha’s message and communicates the essential spiritual insight of Mahayana Buddhism – that all things are ultimately interconnected. The Gandavyuha, as many Mahayana sutras do, consolidates doctrine into image and this is key to its transformative power.

As we ‘read’ the text we are led along a visionary itinerary in the context of which miraculous scenes are disclosed. One scholar has suggested – I think persuasively – that these scenes prefigure the later visualisation exercises characteristic of Tantric Buddhism. In many of these practices, the meditator identifies him or herself with the visualised Buddha or bodhisattva figure. This pattern is seen in the Gandavyuha sutra where Sudhana resolves to cultivate a vision of the great bodhisattva Samantabhadra (Universally Worthy). He engages in some version of Recollecting the Deity and is ultimately blessed with a vision of the bodhisattva. As Sudhana contemplates this vision, clouds of light rays emanate from all the pores of Samantabhadra’s body, illuminating all worlds throughout the cosmos, relieving the pain of all beings.

Sudhana then sees in every pore of Samantabhadra’s body untold numbers of buddha lands, each filled with buddhas. He then enters Samantabhadra’s body, which contains infinite worlds, in the context of which he leads innumerable beings towards awakening. Ultimately, he attains equality with the bodhisattva as he fulfils his quest. This final phase – entering and becoming equal to Samantabhadra – may be compared with the self-identification with the deity characteristic of some Tantric visualisations.

In the Gandavyuha, as in many Tantric practices, transformation is accomplished through a process of imaginative identification. Reading the text then is a matter of opening up to its magical universe, soaking in its visionary atmosphere, even entering the text as an active participant. Through this visionary immersion, our own universe is reconfigured as we begin to see our seemingly humdrum lives framed within an infinitely greater spiritual drama.

Read my Visions of Mahayana Buddhism.

Update on Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 01:05PM by Nagapriya

The scholar who I was referring to here was David McMahan. This topic has also been considered by Douglas Osto in "‘Proto-Tantric’ Elements in the Gandavyuha Sutra," Journal of Religious History 33.2 (June 2009): 165-177

McMahan's article can be accessed via this link:
http://www.shin-ibs.edu/academics/_pwj/three.six.php
 

The Order as Bodhisattva

I have just returned from the biannual convention of the Western Buddhist Order. For various reasons, I have missed a few and so it was some years since I had last attended. It was a very inspiring and uplifting event for me and I had several moments of what I can only call epiphany when I deeply realised that I was doing something profoundly valuable. Perhaps the most moving moment was when the names of those Order members who had passed away or resigned since the previous convention were announced, and we contemplated them in a spirit of metta. For me, this underlined how fragile our fledgling spiritual community is. It has no divine right to continue but will only endure while those of us who constitute it continue to make efforts to deepen our going for refuge to the Three Jewels. This is a sobering thought and a weighty responsibility.

The 1000-armed Avalokiteshvara

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Views as Emergent

One of the classic ways of conceptualising the Buddhist path is in terms of moving from wrong view to right view (and ultimately to perfect view, which involves letting go of all speculative opinion). According to this model, our wrong views stand in the way of seeing things as they really are and, consequently, result in suffering since our conduct is out of sync with reality. It is our ignorance of the nature of reality that is at the heart of our spiritual predicament.

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