Going back over your mistakes, asking yourself painful questions and giving honest answers is a difficult, but enlightening experience.
We’ve all made mistakes in life, some more serious than others, but talking them through, trying to explain why you made this decision at that point in time, makes you re-examine your own values.
Our history is set in stone, we cannot go back and make those decisions anew. But we can try to make amends, apologise for any hurt we have caused, and, above all, be honest with ourselves and others.
The changes in myself, that I see and feel, the way I view life, and my responsibility for events affecting me and people around me, have come about through my Practice and my study of Nichiren Buddhism.
As I have said before, once you see things in a different light, you cannot undo that change. Nor would I want to, because even though I know I will make other mistakes in the future, I know that those mistakes will be made despite honourable intentions, and with a great deal more Wisdom, Courage and Compassion.
The one thing I really must try very hard to improve is how I hear the answers that others give to the questions I ask. I have been guilty of having selective hearing over the last few months and of trying to dissuade others from taking the path that is right for them.
That guilt has caused a great deal of pain to all parties concerned, and for that I am truly sorry. Sadly, I now realise that trying to impose my feelings upon situations beyond my control was never going to work. I hope that I can take the lessons learned into any similar future situations.
Feelings change as we reflect on the causes for those feelings. Acting in haste, motivated by anger, disappointment or desperation will result in the causes of unwanted effects.
You may have gathered that the last few days and weeks have been a little challenging for me. It’s been a little difficult at work, though I’m happy to say that we seem to have worked through that.
There are challenges in life, each and every day. Some are simple and demand little or no self discipline on our part. Others are much more taxing, maybe even painful in nature, and require all our wisdom, courage and compassion in order to deal with them.
We all have choices to make in life. Everything from whether to take tea or coffee to the major life-changing decisions regarding money, relationships, children and careers. Whatever the choice you have to make, make it with wisdom, courage and compassion.
Having the strength to take on the challenges of everyday life is not always easy. Chanting my heart out does it for me, as we’ve discussed before, but this quote from Daisaku Ikeda sums up the reality of the situation very nicely …
There are situations and challenges in life, when the almost overwhelming tendency is to look inwards, to examine repeatedly, the reasons and causes that have brought us to this point in time.
You know the saying about taking the rough with the smooth? Well life generally consists of a mixture of good times and bad times, happiness and sadness, health as well as sickness. In general, it is the ratio of these opposites that makes us feel that life is going well, or going badly.
As a practicing Buddhist, I feel I can be rightly proud, that Buddhism has always been a peaceful philosophy. Apart from some of the political struggles in Sri Lanka, and the forceful annexing of Tibet by China, there has been little or no conflict involving Buddhists, until now.
The Search For Enlightenment 
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