Reflections on Buddhism

Since we must live with the unknowable, religions tend to talk about faith. Buddhism speaks of ‘reasonable faith,’ based on experience and analysis, experimentation and healthy scepticism. Then there is the possibility of faith in our own unrecognised nature as enlightened beings. Working with the ambivalent mysteries of my motivation—uncovering myself as a practitioner—gives way to a ground of trust, relaxation, and confidence from which I can embrace challenges and act deliberately in both practice and daily working, parenting life. It becomes possible to feel, see, think, and live directly. This directness is both intimate and grand in the same moment. A pre-eminently practical, totally inclusive and spontaneous way of living kindness and awareness. It is natural, basic, human sanity – and the music of its language makes this accessible for someone like me in the same way that the Tamaracks turn yellow in October: deliberate, functional, but perfectly method-less and uncontrived.