I am My Change

This last week saw major holiday time in Thailand as it was the annual Songkran or New Year Festival which is the time for water fun.  Well, instead of indulging in the obligatory water sports, I went with good friends to a resort for a day or two and got to visit this marvelous Buddhist temple with them - Wat Yansangvararam.  It was a most welcome and unexpected surprise. 


You alone can change yourself.

I never knew that I was going to enter a centre where I would gain for the first time such real insights into Buddhism.  On leaving the temple, I had the feeling that I had just been somewhere powerful.  The visit had made its impact upon me.  What was it that had such an effect on me?

It was the exhibition presenting the Buddha's teaching in such a succinct and meaningful way.  It presented the Buddha's belief in "a human being's potential to be able to find the path to enable one to be freed from endlessly floating in an ocean of sensual desires, and to reach the shore and end the suffering".
A spiritual path - a path offered by all religions due to the very nature of religion.
So the lessons continued.
"A multitude of emotions circulate in your mind each day.  The soul determines which way to look at the universe."  So "when a viewpoint is changed, your life will be changed".  

The Buddha discovered that to escape from an ocean of sensuous desire, life has to be led not along the path of the extreme but along the path of perfect balance.  This is the life lived by following the way of the Middle Path.

There was much offered to ponder and reflect but here I just offer a part of what so spoke to me, a taste.

For the first time, I felt an inner understanding and appreciation for Buddhism and its message for humanity.  I also started to reflect how it was so lacking in its malpractice by many of its followers today around me in the wider community.  But then isn't that what Ghandi said about Christianity?  The problem was not with Jesus but with his followers.  We can change.  We are our change.

In the Christian context, the word is transformation.  Humanity - all of us and each individual - is transformed into the new humanity through and with the power of the Risen Christ.  This is not magic.  It takes belief and action together.  It is not an easy way to go but the way to go.  I have to remind myself of the way.  This is my preaching to no one but  myself, my sharing an experience that made its imprint on me so that I may not forget.  Happy Easter!  Happy New Year!