You Don’t Have To Become Buddhist

It’s all about our mindset.

You don’t have to become Buddhist to realise the precious teaching of the Buddha, who realised the nature of our essence, the non-duality of appearances and recognition in the moment of pure consciousness (the Vedic teaching of “not two”). This is nothing high-faluting and complicated; it’s what is behind the eyes, behind the mindset reading this right now. You don’t have to do anything, just acknowledge what is happening.

Realisation is not the same as ‘knowing’ about it. We can read and hear about this “until the cows come home”, but we have to experience – with needlepoint accuracy – distractions that carry us away.

Buddhism, like any institution, creates formalities, and lots of wondrous and enthralling toys. “Aye, and there’s the rub…” Toys are captivating and expensive – and hard to let go. People have their ways and that’s okay, we can leave them to it.

Going beyond is the realisation that our reality has no needs, and we can finally let go. We don’t have to be perfect to let go, as letting go is the path. We can work with what we have – our karma – which is how we react to whatever life brings our way.

We have no need to tie ourselves in knots through rigidly following others’ formal displays. The discipline of a form or mould helps us become decent people, adaptable, open to possibilities and with sympathetic empathy. We’ve been through the wringer*!

Once established, we can break the mould and become the original ‘shape’,
unencumbered to express this freedom
– without arrogance.

* suffering a very difficult or unpleasant experience.