Enough Already.

It's been a while since my last post and there have been no comments which I presume means that no one is reading it or they are completely bored with Neighbours and County Cricket reports!

Now, these probably won't stop as they are a small part of what I am, but I have taken the decision this morning to change the blog to reflect more, my thoughts on the world around us, influenced, hopefully, by my Buddhist practise. There'll probably be a personal section too if there's anything of interest to report.

Last night I skipped the Buddhist Study meeting as I 'couldnt be bothered' .. now, this pretty much sums me up a lot of the time and I need to change that. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it's good just to kick back and chill out .. we all need that but I definitely have a tendency to almost give up and think 'what's the point' and that needs to change.

It was partly through watching yet again, a dvd I have called Embattled Buddhists which you can view online at http://sgi-usa.org/thesgiusa/community/video/embBud.html . This is an documentary on the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin and teh Soka Gakkai which puts it into historic context. I think that for me personally, the one thing that stood out was a quote from the second president Josei Toda who said:

“Never passively accept suffering as your destiny. We alone are responsible for the direction of our own lives. Every person has the right to become happy”.

And I think that's so right .. so many of us just accept our lot and don't challenge it, or if we do, we do so only in our minds and never take action to do anything about it.

So .. that's my pledge today to myself ... to get out of my usual lethargy and stop being the Cold Suffering Bird of Buddhist legend which I've always identified myself with and change things ... So .. if I start getting to enthusiastic about Neighbours again ... kick me !!!

And now for my first more thoughtful quote .. maybe I'll start with something nice and simple .. like .... The Middle East !

The reason I've decided to choose this is fairly obvious, each night on TV, we see the true horror of war in the Lebanon and in Israel, with innocent people being killed, many of them young children. Now, It's not my place to go into the rights and wrongs of the conflict, though obviously there are political issues that do need to be resolved before the whole region becomes involved. Some on the extreme right are even talking of World War Three, though, on their part, this might be wishful thinking !!

Probably the most 'interesting' point in it for me, is that, coming from a left wing background, It's a real battle not to hate Israel for everything it has done in the region, and listening to it's leaders at times coming out with some appalling stuff. It seems to me that it really is about time that Israel lose its victim mentality and look forward to the future. No one is denying that the Holocaust was an awful event and should never be forgotten or repeated, but this is not the reason for the war. Interestingly, in a book I read on Islam by Karan Armstrong, apparently, prior to the Palestinians being evicted from their homeland for the creation of Israel, Jews and Muslims lived together pretty much ok, and much anti Israeli propaganda has been taken from Nazi philosophy as there was no real hatred previous to this.

But anyway, my point is that despite my anger at the Israelis actions, having watched Israeli citizens on the news, it's obvious that their main concern is the protection of their families from Hezbollah rockets. These are the ordinary people, not the military. Some of their views I disagree with though I suspect the media in Israel paints a pretty one sided picture. But the point is that they are saying pretty much what the Lebanese are saying. Both sides want to protect themselves from each other, and in doing so are basically encouraging both the Israeli Army and Hezbollah to continuing the fighting which is having exactly the opposite effect. There may well, hopefully, be a ceasefire soon to allow talks, but unless citizens of each country can break down the us and them mentally, the cause is made for this all to re-occur at some time in the future.

There was a blogger on Newsnight the other day who was saying that, despite the current situation, there was still communication between young Israelis and Lebanese and that basically they want the same things from life as each other, and surely this is the way to look forward. Looking at what we need from life to live a healthy fulfilling life and look at ways to create this. It is only the people in power who stand to benefit from wars in the long run and therefore, it's probably only the ordinary citizen who has the power to put an end to all wars.

Now this isn't a Hippy 'stop all wars now maaaan' thing. It isn't going to happen overnight and most likely not in my generation or even the next, but the important thing is to make a start, however small and all in our own way, whether by thought word or deed - It's all about dialogue .. and very often with people we may not like or feel threatened by but if anything positive can come out of this conflict, let's hope it's some kind of hope for a way forward.

And on that note, after watching Neighbours (only kidding ;-) ...I'm going to try to chant for an hour now then have a listen to the new Buddhist Podcast at http://abuddhistpodcast.com/2006/08/05/a-buddhist-podcast-making-a-great-vow/ .

And on that rather lengthy note, I'm signing off for now.