This is a continuation of my last blog.
In my previous blog, I talked about the way acceptance is taught in Christianity: “You are good as you are.” This is used as the foundation for self-confidence.
There are so many people, especially in North America, who don’t have self-confidence, or won’t let themselves be self-confident. This happens because of comparisons with others, peer pressure, worrying about how other people see you, and the standards that TV creates for people to live up to, dictating how people should be, what they should do, and how they should live.
The result is that people become insecure. They think, “I’m different from others.”
The words “you are good as you are” can be gospel to people who have lost their self-confidence, and they can take those words as literally “good news.” They get a feeling of total acceptance.
Hold EgoSome people become lazy after they gain self-confidence and begin to think “I’m good as I am, I don’t have to do anything,” but some people realize that there is a wish hidden inside themselves: “I’d like to grow spiritually,” or they ask questions like “Why am I in this world?” “What is the meaning of my life?” and so on. They then start to explore, embarking on a spiritual journey.
In Tao Sangha’s teaching, we say “Your body is the temple of God (Buddha).” This means there is a God (Buddha) within you. You are the one child of God. You have the same ability that God has to create the future.
When you feel this sensation of God within you, it is the strongest self-confidence you can have and you will understand that you are loved by God. You can be anywhere in any situation, it doesn’t matter what you have or don’t have, because you are loved by God.
To feel this sensation, you must “hold your ego.” Only when you make space for God by holding ego will God appear. And actually, the basics of Tao Sangha’s practice is to not let any ego leak out from yourself. You need to continuously hold ego. Ego is very sneaky, and if you make any space between yourself and God, ego will leak from that space and you might not notice it, but the people around you can easily feel and smell that stinky thing!
So this is the starting point of the practice — hold your ego — and it is the foundation of the practice. From here we grow spiritually.
Tao Sangha’s practice is based on the desire to be a Bodhisattva. There are so many definitions of Bodhisattva, but in Tao Sangha, there are two things that you must desire to do. One is “I want to contain my ego” and another is “I want to help others.” If a person decides to live with these desires, they are Bodhisattva, and to realize these desires is the practice.
If you awaken the true nature of the spirituality within you, then these desires will naturally arise.
Another way to put these desires into words is to say “I want to decide what the future will be and live my life this way.”
If you really decide what you want the future to be, then it will happen that way. Your actions, your words, and the way you think will automatically be aligned with that future. It is a universal law; cause and effect work in spirituality, too.
I don’t think you’ll wish and decide negative things for your future, but if you don’t decide, then your energy will naturally go down, like gravity, and negative things will happen.
Part of your decision must be to lift up the energy around you. And actually, when you really decide, you’ll naturally lift up the energy of the field, so this happens anyway. But if you are not raising the energy of the people around you, then that means you have not decided yet.
For example, when you make excuses, it’s a significant sign of having not decided yet. When you judge people, complain about things, blame others and the situation you are in, those are the signs of having not decided yet. Does someone’s online post irritate your feelings?
When you “decide what the future will be and live your life this way” or “live with the desire to be a Bodhisattva,” it doesn’t matter whether a situation is bad or what people are thinking about you or who said what or what they did.
And this is because you are living the mission of your life, following the deepest part of your heart. And this is when you will feel the love of God.
Buddhism says to be responsible to the Three Treasures, which is God inside yourself, and this appears as the mission of your life. It is the law of the universe and seeing God inside everyone and everything, and praising God inside others as their potential. Another way to say this is “Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.”
So, decide to live the mission of your life and create a better future for everyone!
