The First Blog - The Journey and Inquiry Continues

The First Blog - The Journey and Inquiry Continues

It has taken awhile to create my own blogsite.  It is more of a ‘generation’ thing.  I have been happy to send articles to a host of blogsites over the years to - Ode Magazine (The Intelligent Optimist), Groundviews, ALIA (Authentic Leadership in Action formerly known as Shambala Institute), Greenleaf Publishing and The Broker on Line, but to take the initiative to set my own blogsite seemed daunting.

So I went to my tech support – Son Rahel - 15 years old - and it just amazes me as to how he navigates his way through the system and ‘voila’ - Mindful Balance with Lalith Ananda Gunaratne blogsite emerges.

I have added Ananda to my name - the name my mother gave me after her beloved cousin Ananda Nimalasuriya.  The name Ananda is also fitting as the story unfolds, as he was also Siddartha Gautama  Buddha’s closest friend and first disciple.

Apart from my parents, family, teachers, friends and mentors, Buddha Dhamma has been an anchor for my life.  It is a way of life to me rather than a religion. This enables me to live my life in inquiry, heart and mind open to learning, as everyday brings a new experience, a new lesson when one is mindful. 

Both our parents practiced the Dhamma through the way they lived and were not too caught up in the rituals, even though that does have its place in reverence.

Dhamma is defined as the law that "upholds, supports or maintains the regulatory order of the universe" - life that is lived in accordance with laws of nature.

Dhamma guides my inquiry on the cause of suffering and action needed to undo these causes that defines my Karma.

As I continue to practice and inquire into the Buddha Dhamma, it seems appropriate to call it an applied system for natural mental well-being, beginning with the individual moving out to the community and the world.   It seems a sensible way to keep my balance in an uncertain and an impermanent world.  Dhamma guides me to be responsible for my own personal practice.

My Buddhist home was complemented by my Catholic school.  While I was encouraged to practice Buddhism through reflection, meditation and take personal responsibility for my actions to model behaviours of generosity and virtue, Catholicsim opened me to another way with faith in an external all mighty God.  I am comfortable with the dichotomy as God’s will is a part of my thinking and loving too, alongside the need to take responsibility for myself.

Superficially, it seemed to me the difference is in what would happen when I did something wrong – committed a sin.  The concept of inter-connectedness and Karma was not dissimilar to the being punished by God for my sins.  

Yet, there were differences in whether it was God’s will or my own free will and the universal law of nature.  I may have committed the sin in the first place due to God’s will, so I could ask for forgiveness, perhaps and get back on track.  

Getting caught up in this question is akin to a dog chasing its tail.  

Growing up, I did not delve too deeply into these, and I developed a practice of meditation and mindfulness.  I also enjoyed the sense of community of the church, recited the Lord's prayer, heeded the message of compassion and to love thy neighbor, the beautiful hymns and I had a God around if I needed some help and forgiveness.  

The difference was that I did not live in fear of God’s wrath.  The basic practice of Dhamma - learning the 4 Nobel Truths and Noble Eightfold pathway gave me confidence that with good intentions and a practice of living in harmony with nature would bring me good Karma.

The 4 Noble truths identified suffering, its cause, its cessation and the path leading to its cessation.

Suffering – The inevitability of the humiliation in our life.

The Cause of Suffering – The primal thirst that makes this humiliation inevitable.

Cessation of Suffering – The promise that there can be release from the suffering.

The Path to Ending Suffering – The way to accomplish this release from suffering.

The way to end suffering and find happiness is to live the middle path (avoid self indulgence and self mortification).   There are eight factors of mind and behavior that need to come in line for the middle path. 

Mindfulness enables us to be aware.  Concentration through a practice of meditation enables reflection and insight to arise.  This opens our minds to right view - wisdom giving us clarity of Thought.  Good thoughts lead to thoughtful Speech and Action.  Good action leads to a Livelihood that does minimal harm and then we live with diligence and right Understanding. 

 This is the Eightfold Pathway.

Behavioural Categories (Ethical Foundation)	Right Speech – samma vaca* Right Action – samma kammanto Right Livelihood – samma ajivo
Meditative Categories (Mental Discipline)	Right Effort – samma vicci Right Concentration – samma samadhi Right Mindfulness – samma sati
Wisdom Categories (Conceptual Foundation or Right View)	Right Understanding – samma ditthi Right Thought – samma sankappo

* the Pali word in italics

In order to develop the ‘Right View’, Buddha encouraged the examination of the manifestations of ‘False View’.  Then our confusion about the nature of our emotions maybe better understood in relation to ego and the self. According to the Buddha, emotions confuse us and this dictates the way we understand anything.  We realize that we are not our thoughts.

Following the Eightfold Path, instead of thoughts and emotions - feelings and needs - ruling the way of understanding, allows understanding and awareness to change the way we experience emotions.  

Without understanding and mindfulness, our emotions, driven by the ego can take us on a roller coaster ride, rolling out unskillful words and actions getting us into deeper trouble in our relationships.

When we strive to live by the Nobel Eightfold Pathway and with good intentions, graciousness and generosity, we create positive relationships with love and trust.

In the analysis, Buddha is compared to an experienced doctor, and the Dhamma to medicine. However efficient the doctor or wonderful the medicine may be, the patient cannot be cured unless the medicine is taken properly.  So the personal practice of the Dhamma is the only way to attain my liberation - enlightenment (Nibbāna).  

The Dhamma is uncovered gradually through sustained practice.  Buddha made clear that "awakening" does not occur immediately to the untrained and unprepared mind.  It culminates a long journey of many stages.  This requires patience, which makes it so difficult in the modern world of instant gratification.

My quest has been to link this experience to my everyday life as a parent, spouse, friend, entrepreneur, organizational consultant and trainer.  This is my action research and inquiry.  

I follow what Daniel Pink portrays in his book, A Whole New World as High Touch and High Concept when I link the Dhamma foundation to leadership and organizational development.

High Touch is about finding purpose and meaning to life, connecting with and eliciting joy in others and being content. 

High Concept is about detecting new patterns and opportunities and creating artistic and emotional beauty.   Unrelated ideas are brought together to form something new.

Indeed it is time – to bring what seems unrelated - our spirituality and our physical world together.  Descarte separated the mind and body – "Cogito ergo sum – I think therefore I am"- on the premise that the mind is a physical entity.  However, the mind is a 'process' that is intertwined with our physical body.   

The modern technological world has grown up with this separation and this causes our suffering. I have realized through my mindfulness practice that our breath - prana or chi - connects our mind and body making us whole.  This enables us to find equanimity through this roller coaster of our life of uncertainty.  

The Buddha Dhamma’s foundation informs me that indeed, everything is connected and interdependent.

As such, this lifelong inquiry, reflection and meditation continues on my inward journey, which influences my interpersonal relationships.  

In life there is always chance and fate, yet I know I can control my emotions and make choices in the way I react and act in any situation.  I know that I can create the conditions to influence an interaction but I can never control someone else’s emotions. 

As long as my intentions are honourable to seek the right conceptual foundation, my actions are based on an ethical foundation and I strive for mental discipline through mindfulness. This way I can find the balance to be pragmatic to live my life in a competitive - at times reptilian – world, learn to navigate and cope with the day to day challenges.  

Making a living without compromising my Values and freedom is most challenging in the modern world.

Taking the Path Less Travelled

After I finished my tertiary education as a Mechanical Engineering Technologist in Ontario, Canada, I let my life unfold without having a goal.  My cousin Viren Perera and I took a path less traveled, inspired by James Michener's book, The Drifters in 1984 in an orange Volkswagen Pop Top bought in London, England. This path landed me in the country of my birth, Sri Lanka, with many tales to tell.  This blogsite will relate those stories and what I have learned along the way through my life and inquiry.  
My journey on the path less traveled continues having moved back to Ottawa, Canada with Samantha and our four children in August 2011 having been away in Sri Lanka since 1984.  

I trust that others with all kinds of diverse views, ideas and thoughts will join me in on this journey of inquiry and dialogue in the spirit of learning positively and with good intentions.

I share Robert Frost’s Path Less Travelled in that spirit.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;          Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,          And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.          I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

In Sagres, Portugal 1984 - on the path less traveled.....