I would like to talk about the theme concerning winning in Buddhism. What does that mean?
And for me it's happiness. It's very interesting we don't talk about competition in the winning
over somebody or against somebody to compete, it's more a question of internal spiritual
challenge in life and in an individual.
And why I'm talking about happiness or this kind of internal struggle or challenge is
because I have inherent in me and in every human being, we call it Buddha nature or Buddhahood,
a state of life where we really have a deep understanding about the true nature of life.
Well that means that we can, without delusion, see how things are, how the phenomena in life
really is. And the opposite we also have inherent is called fundamental darkness. Well, what
does that mean? That's something when we usually look at the life we have it in through cloud
I could say, something that we don't really be able to see what life is about.
And when we have Buddha nature activated in our lives through the practice that we do,
that means that we can see how life is interconnected with everything. It's about wholeness, it's
about every life has connection to the other lives. It's not about separation or division
that fundamental darkness wants us to see life, it is either me or the other person,
or us or those people. We see how life in itself is an expression through phenomena
that we call life. And why we want to strengthen our Buddha nature and get through and manifest
it in our lives is because we can have wisdom, courage, compassion and life force, that we
all have this huge potential in our lives inherent. And when we have this manifested
in our lives, we know how to act appropriate way in every situation. No matter what the
challenge is, it can be external or internal challenge, difficulty, problem, what we call it.
We can understand that we can transform that. And that inner resolve makes a difference
in our lives. And that means it's a win-win situation for myself and others.
Many times when we have a difficulty or a problem, it's not about the problem, it is
because we are hopeless, we don't know what to do with it. And when we don't know what
to do with it, we become, of course, unhappy. It's more or less to know that there is a solution.
So in a Buddhist way I can say there is hope in life. It's not wishful thinking,
it's really the inner resolve to know I have this wonderful enlightened nature in me that
I can really manifest and activate in my life. So that's what I would like to say, that "winning"
means really winning over that fundamental darkness which is in my life. And the transformation
in me makes the transformation also in my surroundings. It's happiness for myself and
others. I call it a celebration about life. I think it's not just that we say think positively,
it has something to do with this kind of life force that we can draw from ourselves, and
we know that it's everywhere in this life and in every human being. And that makes us
also appreciate everybody in their self because we are the same in this sense. So it's a question
of spiritual battle in me when I can say that I can either let the fundamental darkness
rule or I can know that I can manifest my Buddha nature, my enlightened energy, or enlightened
nature in my life.
I've had a very strong experience of what we call winning in Buddhism, about this concept.
A friend of mine who got cancer, second time 2002, and because of that very serious disease
of course and she got frightened, she started to practice. And I have to say I'm honored
that I had the trip with her to go through this long process, she died in 2011. So she
was alive nine years. And through these years, I have to say, there were great moments, there
was disease was going backwards, and then we had the moments when of course the disease
was taking over. And the process, we all die one day that's for sure, it's of course a fact,
she changed her life in a way that even when she died, we knew that it was coming,
she wasn't afraid of death, and it was not any more about death, it was about life.
And I have to say that it was, for me, such a revelation to really understand that to be
together with somebody and knowing that life is about life, even though we die and death
is part of it, but because of the deep understanding about the nature of life, and about the moment,
that no matter how long we live, we are living in the moment and we can make the best out
of it, so that we really can create the most positive value. And even she was sick and
even she was weak and all that, it didn't defeat her, which was unbelievable to see.
When she died she had two children, young adults, and I can see that of course there
was sorrow, we were all sad. But it wasn't a dead end, it was not a crash, down that
everybody would be defeated in this sense. We could celebrate life, we could celebrate
her life and we could celebrate life in general, which means that these two children knew that
if they live fully their lives they are going to make their mother happy. It was an unbelievable
experience, I'm so happy that I was able to and she allowed me to be there with all the
more critical moments and then all the good moments. And we knew that this was not depending
on if she was going to be free of the disease or not, or not to die that moment or to die.
It was something much deeper and much more, I would say, a celebration of life. It was
wonderful and I'm grateful to her and I'm very grateful to the practice we did and what I'm doing.
Thank you very much.