The Search For Enlightenment

I have always been prone to setting my expectations too high, and that leads to disappointment when the expectation isn’t met. My Dad, on the other hand, always seemed to be a bit pessimistic, he never appeared to have very high expectations, never got overexcited about things, so didn’t allow himself to show disappointment, or that was the way it looked to me.

Since I have been practicing Nichiren Buddhism I have an inner strength that helps me through difficult times. It is a great comfort and I would recommend it to anyone who is struggling with issues or problems.

The strange thing is that Buddhism doesn’t always make the problems go away, although that does sometimes happen, but it gives me a different way of looking at the situation and a focus that makes the problems more easy to understand and to bear.

In general, my life has been pretty easy. I have a very loving family, great parents and had a very stable home life in my formative years. I’ve been through a few troughs, the usual things like losing my grandparents and my father, and failed relationships, the same as every one else. I’m about to set off on a new career path of teaching, which could prove to be a challenge, but I truly believe that my inner strength will see me able to cope much better now.

If I were to try to pinpoint the single most important reason for this, I would say it was a new found mental calm. Now I’ve never been a fighter. At school I used to use humour to get out of the usual confrontations all kids get into. But I was prone to letting my feelings show, particularly when disappointment was involved.

It does seem that because I can now see the situation from all angles, just like those images on the web, where you can spin the item around and look at it every which way, I can rationalise things more easily. Being able to see a situation from other peoples perspective allows me to make sense of how things appear to them, and understand why they are reacting in the way they are.

It has changed my life, or at least the way I look at it, and it can help anyone. Maybe it could help you.