The Search For Enlightenment

Every now and then it is a good thing to brush up on the basics. That applies to pretty much everything in life, be it academic, occupational, sporting or more especially spiritual.

Let’s imagine that the Government decided to bring in some form of driving test for experienced drivers. Now I have been driving since the 6th of March 1973, over 40 years, since petrol was 50p a gallon, not a litre, a gallon, so I consider myself to be pretty experienced.

I fear however, that were I asked to take a driving test tomorrow, I would fail. Not because I am a bad driver, but because I have picked up bad habits over the years, habits that would be frowned upon in a test environment.

So what, I hear you ask, has this got to do with The Ten Worlds or the World of Learning. Well, having been a Buddhist for a little over a third of the time I have been driving, I have picked up bad habits there too. Well not bad habits exactly, but the lessons I learned in the early years have been reinforced by lessons learned more recently, reinforced, but also made slightly out of focus.

When you feel a loss of focus, there is only one thing to do, so I am studying the basics yet again, to generally sharpen up my Buddhist act once more. Besides, the World of Learning is a wonderful place, so rather than filling me with any form of dread, it fills me with a renewed excitement and a yearning to re-examine all I have learned to date.