The Lotus Still Blooms Read Online Free PDF Page A

happy. Or perhaps we think it’s knowing the right people, belonging to the right club, going to the right parties, receiving recognition and awards. Many Americans view success as living through their children’s accomplishments, even living their lives for their children. These are all wrong view, because someday all of the preceding are going to cause you to suffer. Someday you will see they are all impermanent with no enduring reality.
    The door will close in your face. You’ll be passed over for the award. Your child will resent you. Someone will come along who is more educated, more clever, more handsome and on and on. You will suffer because you mistakenly believed your happiness was circumstance-dependent rather than knowing that the impermanent can never bring about happiness.
    An affirmation you can use to change this “outer” thinking is: “My happiness comes only from that which is eternal.” From time to time I meditate on that affirmation, and it brings much clarity to my mind, helping me to really know what is truly valuable. And I have discovered these valuable truths for myself: love, caring, kindness, sharing, generosity, a peaceful mind, peaceful perceptions, compassion, understanding. These are the seeds in my life that I water daily.
    Right View is truly seeing life as it is, not as it appears to be in the outer. As I write this, it is just a few days past the London suicide bombings of three underground stations and one double-decker bus. In the West our collective head is spinning over the shock of it all. We question how this could happen and happen in of all places the seat of civility, London. The four young men, three born in England and all raised there, by all appearances were totally integrated into British culture. Yet their secretly held views were anything but pro-British. While they plotted their destructive plan, those who lived with them and knew them had no clue of their sinister scheme. Most would agree they harbored wrong view.
    Anytime anyone believes some benefit can come forth by causing another to suffer, it is the opposite of Right View. It is wrong view. Unwholesome seeds of hate were watered by these young men. We must be very mindful to water only wholesome seeds so they are what blooms in us and in our children.
    Thich Nhat Hanh sums up Right View with this teaching: “From the viewpoint of ultimate reality, Right View is the absence of all views.” Right View is realizing that the true nature of the mind is the true nature of everything. This is the absolute truth.
    Our perceptions deceive us, pure and simple. They cannot be trusted. Perceptions lead to deceptions. And when we begin to realize this, we begin to wake up. In order to experience Right View we have to make the connection between what is manifesting in our lives and what seeds we are watering.
    Right View is distinct from Right Thought, but all are linked. Right View is a challenging concept, an ultimate concept. With the very highest expression of Right View we relinquish our judgments, good or ill, about everything. Who has accomplished this? Not many. But when we grasp it, we can end our suffering.
    When the historical Buddha first began to teach, he knew in his awakened mind that it was possible to end suffering and to cease being miserable. It is possible to end being miserable, but we must start with an accurate view of an experience. These are the seeds we must water.

. . . Everything depends on mind. Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheel of the cart follows the oxen that draw it. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.
     
— THE DHAMMAPADA
    RIGHT THOUGHT

    THINKING IS THE SPEECH of the mind. This is such a simple and profound way to define our own thinking. When our thinking is aligned with Right View, we are thinking clearly in accord with the highest ideals. A Course in Miracles speaks of upside-down thinking,