Hope

 

                    We live in difficult times.  Hope is important so that we do not fall into despair and give up on life.  If we believe that tomorrow can be better, we are better able bear the hardships of today.

                    But in the Buddhist tradition, hope is not just wishful thinking that something better will somehow materialize in the future.  In Buddhism, the Pali word for hope or faith is Saddha, and it means action rather than a state of mind or a belief.  It is something that you do.  Hope is a way to approach reality with a positive mindset, an active engagement with the present moment with the intention of creating a better future.  Hope is the willingness to “go for it,” it is seeing a possibility for positive change that energizes us to show up and act when we have no guarantee of success.  Hope invites us to step into the unknown and take a risk, over and over again. 

This kind of hope is what makes it possible for a person to quit a job of seventeen years and move from city life in California onto a piece of undeveloped forested land in Oregon, not knowing anybody in the state, and not having a job.  This can happen when there is an energizing hope for the possibility of something better leading to taking action.  This I know from my own experience.

Hope is something we can cultivate in ourselves, and there are a number of useful practices we can use to help us do this.  We can start with Thich Nhat Hanh’s suggestion that we “Be a river, not a drop of water.”  This means that we must find ways to join with other people working for the same values and experience the strength and encouragement of tapping into the power of a group and no longer feel overwhelmed.  A single drop of water cannot do much, but a river has great power. 

It came as a great surprise to me that many of Thich Nhat Hanh’s numerous books were not written by him, but were in fact a group effort.  It begins with a monk or nun taking notes on one of his talks, and then others edit the notes and put them into their final form as a book.  All decisions about a book are made collectively by means of unanimous agreement. We too, can find ways to join with other people to greatly multiply what we can do and thus become a river. 

We can join with neighbors, family members, people where we work, church members, clubs or societies we belong to, classmates, or social and political organizations, to become part of a larger force for creating good. 

This next practice is also a powerful one.  We must practice guarding against the thought that “I’m only one little person, what I do does not make any difference.”  The practice here is to regularly remind ourselves of a very basic truth:  We can never actually know that our positive actions have not achieved anything. Our actions are constantly influencing the world in many ways that we simply cannot see. Think of all the times you read or heard or saw something that radically changed your life, and yet the person who produced those words or actions has no idea that you were changed forever.  Sometimes a smile and a friendly word can change the entire trajectory of a person’s day or life 

The following is a true story.  Sandy and Valerie were thirteen year old friends walking down the street together when Sandy put a stick of gum in her mouth and threw the wrapper on the sidewalk.  Without saying a word, Valerie bent down and picked up the wrapper, but as soon as she straightened up Sandy snatched it out of her hand and threw it on the sidewalk again.  This happened two more times, but on the fourth time Sandy allowed Valerie to keep the wrapper. 

Valerie didn’t resist Sandy’s snatchings of the wrapper, and she didn’t lecture, shame, get angry, or judgmental.  Instead, she just did the work:  she picked up the litter, and she set a good example for Sandy and anyone else who might have been present.  And something shifted deep inside of Sandy.  She thought to herself “If it’s that important to Valerie, it must be important.”  Sandy stopped littering immediately and never did it again, although Valerie has no idea that she had so much impact—she was just being herself. 

Sandy always knew that Valerie was different and she admired that.  She had seen how Valerie respected other people, didn’t make snide remarks about others or gossip, didn’t wear make up or pay attention to fashion, was extremely tall, and wasn’t uncomfortable with being “different” in any of these ways.  Her family had no television and they talked to each other about subjects of substance and had no problems when disagreements arose.  Valerie knew she wanted to be a paleontologist when she grew up and was passionate about it.  

Because of her manner of being in the world, because of her way of engaging life, Sandy had great respect for Valerie. And because of that respect and admiration, Sandy’s life changed.  It was the beginning of questioning and of caring about her choices.  There was a ripple effect from what Valerie did that has stayed with Sandy (now an ardent environmentalist) for sixty years. The story has also inspired me.   And if this story produces a shift in even one of the readers of this blog, the ripple effect is still expanding outward to this day.  But Valerie will never know about any of it, and the same is true of many of our actions both big and small. 

Social commentator and activist Robert Hubbell has said that “Protesting [harmful and illegal acts of government] is an act of faith. We cannot see the minds that are changed by our acts of resistance. We may never know which friends or family members we spurred to action. We will not receive acknowledgement or thanks for our work.”  But we can still know that our acts or resistance can and do change things none the less. 

The Bhagavad Gita says, “Let not the fruits of action be your motive.” We do the best thing we know how to do today because it is the right thing to do, and knowing that the fact that everything is impermanent will provide us with a whole new set of circumstances to work with tomorrow.  

We can also practice reminding ourselves that our falling into despair makes it easier for others to give up rather than inspiring them to act. We are all interconnected.  Despair is contagious—but so is hope and the action that it brings.  As Gandhi once said “Your life is your message to the world.”  Every day, what we do says to the world “This is how a human being should respond to life.” 

We can also keep in our awareness the fact that our life only exists now, not in the future.  We must be present in the here and now in order to see the opportunities and possibilities available to us right now.  The world has always suffered from afflictions.  It does not make sense to put our life on hold until we finally get everything “fixed.”  

The Buddha went so far as to say that “The world is a house on fire,” meaning that there is great suffering almost everywhere.  The world has always suffered from afflictions. And afflictions have been regularly overcome in the past, but there will always be more work to do.  That is part of the human condition, part of our “job description” as a human on this planet.   If we accept this, we suffer less and we can be a more effective agent for positive change.  And as Confucius pointed out “It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.”  

Many years ago, the American philosopher William James wrote what became a classic essay called “The Will to Believe.”  In it, he said that when there is no decisive evidence one way or the other in regard to some issue, your belief choice must be based on other considerations.  Those other considerations can be how a belief affects you emotionally and how it affects the world we live in. As long as your choice does not close your mind to new evidence, if believing something makes your life and/or the lives of others more meaningful and productive, it makes sense to believe based on that benefit.  

It is true that there are a lot of bad things happening in the world, and if we are looking for bad things it will seem as though there is nothing but bad things. But it is equally true that there are good things—lots of evidence of progress—in the world.  And we will see these things if we make a practice of choosing to look for them.  So we have a choice.  One choice brings us suffering, despair, and giving up, the other choice gives us hope and taking action to improve things.  Both choices are based on a truth, but only one leads to good results.

The author James Baldwin once said “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”     

 

 

Note:   My intention is to add new posts to the blog approximately every 2 to 3 weeks. If you would like to receive an e-mail notification each time a new blog post is made, please let me know and I will add you to the list of recipients. This notification will also include the title of the new post.  Some of the material that appears in this blog is copyrighted, but in keeping with the Buddha’s teaching that the dharma is not to be sold, the contents of this blog may be freely copied and given away, but not sold. 

            If you have questions, comments, or ideas for new Blog topics please contact Dale at ahimsaacres@gmail.com.