Reinventing The (Dharma) Wheel

This is what we all have to do to realise the real Dharma, and it’s the reason why the Buddha said, “Do not take my words for the truth; test them for yourself”.

The Dharma is all about what we are. Empathy is the hallmark of experiential realisation, being naturally able to understand the feelings of others who are suffering, or we who feel are outsiders. It’s not about some great person, or being able to repeat a scholarly script which is difficult for others to understand. These scholars don’t realise how mechanical and heartless they sound.

So, we have to go back to square one; to admit that we and everyone else are suffering even though we may appear to be scholarly :-), and to realise that the cause of suffering is a belief in a self-programme. Then, we find the method to eliminate that suffering, and apply it. Apply it, because then we know how this self-programming which causes suffering actually works. Self-programming is something that scholars and the religious do.

Dharma is not about feeling superior or competitive.

Reading and reciting hundreds of thousands of pujas and mantras, and doing mudras and prostrations, or blowing thigh bones, waving vajras and circumnambulating, spending years doing retreats, learning Tibetan and Sanskrit … all these are for a society that is sleepy, while modern people are alert and driven, and need direct experience. Such activities do nothing unless we start at our beginning, with a recognition that we are suffering – feeling uneasy – rather than just reading about it.

Too many people acquire the mannerisms, and have little empathy for others. This is aversion, and it’s not the real Dharma at all. When we are sensitive to others’ peculiarities, we have started the wheels rolling by not being irritated.

If we ignore others, we have no wheels,
and so we have no vehicle in which to ascend the levels.