Oneness of Person & Environment

From the musical Singin' in the Rain

Star in Your Own Life

I got my name in lights with notcelebrity.co.uk

By Seleus Blelis

You're the star of your own life. The leading man or woman. You choose not to play the wise-cracking best friend or funny sidekick. Maybe you've play that role long enough. But now is the time to shine and show the world what you're made of. We all have that chance to change even the littlest things, into something beautiful and lasting.  This comes from a pure place because you want to evolve and understand past actions that have caused you such unhappiness. But that cannot happen if you are blinded by ignorance and arrogance. 

Once you begin to question the same patterns that keep repeating themselves in your life, then you can begin to replace them with a whole new set of tools. My tools are Faith, Practice and Study. Always remember the one thing that is constant in your environment- YOU. And if YOU put the blame on others for your own misery, you will never see a change. 

Even if you don't believe in this practice. The same rules apply. It all starts with you. The beauty of this practice, is that you can be the star of your own life and be freed from delusion.  You can see clearly why and how you are suffering. What lead to it? And then, what you can do about it. You can win by having a indestructible spirit. By knowing that you at least tried and fought. 

When you clearly envision a victorious outcome, engrave it in your heart and are firmly convinced that you will attain it, your brain makes every effort to realize the mental image you have created. Then, through unceasing efforts, that victory is finally made reality. You are the playwright of your own victory. 

 (3/9/93 Faith In Action)

Groundhog Day

"When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter."- Phil Connors

That is a line from the funny 1993 Harold Ramis film "Groundhog Day. It stars Bill Murray as a egotistical and cynical weatherman Phil Connor who is sent to Punxatawney, Penn., to cover Groundhog Day. He rather be anywhere than near that darn groundhog. He's accompanied on this trip by Rita (Andie McDowell), the segment producer. Because of a snowstorm, they are forced to stay another day. When he wakes up the next morning at 6am (with Sonny and Cher singing "I Got You Babe" on the clock radio), he discovers that it's Groundhog Day all over again. Everyone and everything is the same except for him. And it keeps happening over and over, day after day after day.

Just like my review of the film "Harold & Maude", this film also has a Buddhist theme. According to Buddhist critic Tom Armstrong, its "the greatest Buddhist movie ever made". 

I really enjoy this film and upon re-watching this past weekend, you yourself will feel like your stuck in a time loop and want to catch the next greyhound bus out of town for good. But more importantly, you can see that change is possible. The kind of change that affects you, your environment and your karma. 

You leave the film thinking, man Phil is one enlightened guy! Phil is not a god. He never says he is but believes he's like a god. But he's an ordinary person like all of us. We may see what he was able to accomplished as extraordinary (like having super powers or something, which I will address in a upcoming post), but its fact is not. Phil perfectly depicts what a Bodhisattva is. 

So we know that Phil relives the same day over and over again. The same events happen, day in and day out. But how is he like a Bodhisattva? As witness his journey into the Ten Worlds (some say his character is in a time loop for about 8.5 years or more) ,he begins to realize that in order to break this cycle he needs to change himself. Here is what we know about Phil and a general sequence of events that happen to him:

• He's not a nice guy, arrogant, insincere, egocentric.
• He cannot believe the day is repeating itself, aggravated.
• He tests how far he can go without ever paying for any consequences for his actions (punching out a man, overeating, robbing money),  "I don't worry about anything anymore".
• He has fun getting information to use the following day to take advantage of people, testing his memory of events.
• He uses the same tactics on the segment producer Rita so he can woo her. 
• She repeatedly slaps and rebuffs his advances.
• He looks terrible, tired and defeated, and figures he has to stop the groundhog so Winter could end 

PHIL (sarcastic, to camera) Well, that's it.  Sorry you couldn't be here in person to share the electric moment.  This is one event where television really fails to capture the excitement of thousands of people gathered to watch a large squirrel predict the weather, and I for one am deeply grateful to have been a part of it. Reporting for Channel 9, this is Phil Connors. 
RITA You want to try one that's a little sweeter? 
PHIL That's as sweet as I get.  I'm outa here.

• He drives off a cliff (with the groundhog in tow) to his suppose death
• He survives that so begins his quest find other ways to off himself (stabbed, poisoned, hanged, frozen, jumps off a building, burned, electrocuted.
• He thinks he's a god because he survived all of those attempts and tries to convince Rita by telling her all the things he knows about her, Punxatawney and its people.

After spending the day with Rita, she realizes this is not the same jerk she once knew. He is being honest, opened, and there is this kind of realization that sets in for him. But not the realization you think. He's close to it though. He thought he had the power to control everyone and everything. He wasted his days for selfish reasons, but once that idea got tired. He tried to kill himself to escape his suffering, but that didn't work- he thought okay now what? I thought that even though he was experiencing the same day over and over again, he was creating new experiences. The more you learn about what works and what doesn't work, you begin to expand and grow as a person. He was discovering parts of himself that maybe he never knew existed or was possible.


RITA I'm just amazed. And I'm not easily amazed.
PHIL About what?? 
RITA How you can start a day with one kind of expectation and end up so completely different.

In other words, change you, change your environment. 

To me the turning points happens when he's with Rita flipping cards in a hat and he says that its always the same day, February 2nd and there is nothing I can do about it. Rita tells him:

"I don't know, Phil. Maybe it's not a curse. It just depends on how you look at it."

Later when she falls asleep, he speaks from his heart to Rita and says:  "It doesn't matter what happens tomorrow or for the rest of my life. I'm happy now."

• Now he wakes up with a different more positive attitude.
• Learns how to play the piano, ice sculpt, speak french, attempts to save man' life who once before he completely ignored.
• Saves a kid falling out of a tree, fixes a flat tire for a bunch of elderly women, helps a choking man, shows his piano playing abilities at the groundhog banquet..slowly but surely impressing Rita.
• He unveils his ice sculpture of Rita and says "I'm happy now because I love you no matter what happens. 
• He wakes up again, next to Rita...its a brand new day, February 3rd

"Groundhog Day" really illustrates the Buddhist concept of samsara, the continuing cycle of birth and death that ordinary people undergo in the the world of illusion and suffering. Buddhists regard this suffering one must escape. This rebirth is referred to as "transmigration in the six paths." The six paths are the realms of hell, hungry spirits, animals, asuras, human beings, and heavenly beings. Unenlightened beings are born into one of the six paths in accordance with their actions in their previous existence; when the present life is over,they are reborn in the same or another of the six paths, REPEATING this process so long as they fail to free themselves from it. Sound familiar? Freeing oneself from transmigration is our goal. The causes for such transmigration are regarded as ignorance of the true nature of life and selfish craving. In order to free yourself from this, you must awaken to the truth of your life and eliminate selfish craving, which leads to attaining nirvana.

The film also illustrates the Buddhist concept of attachment. Because of our attachment to ignorance, hatred, greed or things outside ourselves, we are never satisfied. And the more attach we become, the more we experience misery, complaints and doubt.

Phil awakened to the truth which is why he would be considered a Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva is one who aspires to attain enlightenment or Buddhahood and carries altruistic practice. Phil displays this in many forms when he begins to give back, save lives and more importantly shows compassion for the citizens of Punxsutawney. In Nichiren Buddhism, one can attain Buddhahood in your present form and completed in a single lifetime. Phil goes through the lower ten worlds over and over and in the end, finds happiness and satisfaction in devoting himself to relieving the suffering of others. His early selfish actions (bad causes), did not yield good results (effects) for him either. When he began to embrace his life, his existence- he changed the people around him. They were magnetized to him or as we say attracted to his high life condition. And as a result, finds a genuine love relationship with Rita.

Many may wonder how he gets there. One could say because he really heard what Rita said and changed his perceptions when he stopped trying and began to care or when he stopped making bad causes and surrendered to the truth of his heart. I like to think its because he had a omamori with him (traveling case that holds your Gohonzon) in his room or somewhere, he was shakabukued. And after every failed day, he chanted to find clarity and wisdom. It was trial and error each time but he finally found the key to unlock his suffering. Here the eightfold path is evident. He had the self-awareness, optimism and courage to change his life. We all do. Its about acknowledging that the mistakes we make, can be improved upon and by making one small or big change, you can significantly achieve whatever it is you want. In other words, you are ultimately responsible for your own happiness.

According to Dean Sluyter, the author of Cinema Nirvana: Enlightenment Lessons from the Movies, the film repeat parts of the same day forty-two times, or six weeks, exactly the time we will wait for winter to end if the groundhog sees his shadow. “In other words,” he said, “we are the groundhog and we are afraid of our own shadow, a shadow created by light. That light is truth, reality. Ultimate truth, then, is not a bummer. It’s nothing.”

But that can't be done if you stay in your groundhog shadow because you will never see the Spring. He saw Winter has an opportunity, a challenge to change himself and his environment. And as we learned from our Buddhist practice Winter never fails to turn into Spring.

By Seleus Blelis
 

The 3 Realms of Existence

Living Buddhism January 2000 p.9

The Three Realms of Existence are: 1) The realm of the five components, 2) the realm of living beings, and 3) the realm of the environment (or land). Of these, the third, the "realm of the environment" is perhaps the easiest to explain and understand. It refers to the place where living beings exist and carry out their activities. The natural environment, for example, is a "realm of the environment" as is a city in which many people live. This concept is extremely important as it expands the Buddhist view of life from the individual to the dynamic relationship between the individual, society and the environment. 

(Deviantart)

"Realm" here comes from the Japanese term seken, which, in Buddhism, also means "distinction" or "difference." For our purpose, we can also think of it as "diversity." Thus the term "three realms" can also be taken to mean "three spheres of diversity" or "three kinds of distinction." 

These differences mean differences in how life’s potential conditions, known as the Ten Worlds, express or manifest themselves. In other words, a living being who manifests the world of Hell is quite different or distinct from one who manifests the world of, say, Humanity, or Learning, even if it is the very same being. Our "angry" self is quite different from our "grateful and caring" self, or our "inquisitive" self, for example. 

People who are in depths of suffering are "living beings in the states of Hell." People overwhelmed with joy at some development in their lives are “people in the state of Heaven." And people who dwell in a condition of absolute happiness and satisfaction are "living beings of the world of Buddhahood." These are distinctions in the realm of living beings.

And as I suggested above, the realm of living beings represents such distinctions even within the same individual from one moment to the next.

Distinctions of the Ten Worlds within the Constituent Elements of Life

While the realm of living beings and the realm of the environment are fairly self-explanatory, the "realm of the five components" is a bit more complex. Buddhism traditionally defines living beings as being formed of five constituent elements, or "components." There are form, perception, conception, volition and consciousness. The realm of the five components refers to the way each of the ten worlds expresses itself throughout these five components.

"Form" means the body and its five sensory organs that perceive the world. "Perception" means the reception of sensory information through those sense organs. "Conceptions" is the function of becoming aware of and forming an idea or conclusion about what we have perceived. "Volition" means the will to initiate action is in response to what we have perceived and conceived. And "consciousness" is the integrating factor of life, the discerning function that makes value-judgments, distinguishes right from wrong, etc. It is both the source of and the harmonizing force behind the other components. While "form" describes life’s physical aspect and the other four the "spiritual," none can exist in a living being without the others.

A single human life is viewed as a merging and harmonizing of the physical and spiritual potentials of life. And the differences these components display in response to each of the Ten Worlds describes the "realm of the five components."

Thus the realm of living beings and the realm of the five components indicate distinctions within life itself—different states manifested by life’s constituent elements and within the living being as an integrated whole. The realm of living beings can also be described as including all of human society, since Buddhism teaches that no single living being arises or exists independently of others.

But what do these distinctions have to do the ultimate goal of Buddhism which is the attainment of enlightenment, or absolute happiness?

The Principle of Human Revolution and Reformation of the Environment

From the perspective of life and its environment, the realms of the five components and of living beings represent life in its many diverse forms and modes. The realm of the environment corresponds to the external world—the environment, and the diversity and potential for change it contains. A human life at each moment encompasses both life and its environment. When there is a change in the depths of a person's life, that change is reflected in the whole person—in all of his or her component functions, activities and relationships—and in the surrounding environment. The principle of the three realms of existence explains the potential for transforming an individual human life. This is what human revolution means. It also predicts how that inner revolution can transform the environment.

If the environment had no relationship to the inner condition of people’s lives, then changes in the environment would be independent of and unrelated to the human condition. The doctrine of the three realms of existence thus forms an important basis for our understanding of both human resolution and "environmental revolution," and of how the two are related. It tells us that when there is a distortion in the inner lives of individuals, this will invite a negative change in the environment. When the inner lives of human beings and their interrelationships are harmonious and enriched, their environment will flourish and be at peace.

The three realms of existence gives us hope in that is explains that life possesses tremendous flexibility and potential for change. When we change our inner condition, everything changes. It also explains why no two people are alike. With regard to the five components, for example, no two people possess the same form, nor will they perceive, conceive or act on the same stimulus in the same way. Even if they are both "people of the world of Learning," for example, their five components will function differently, uniquely.

This concept also reminds us, then, that human life is infinitely diverse, yet that everyone, no matter how different from ourselves, has the potential for the most noble state of Buddhahood and is therefore a precious being.

The Oneness of Life and Its Environment

The principle of the oneness of life and its environment describes the inseparable relationship of the individual and the environment. People generally have a tendency to regard the environment as something separate from themselves, and from the viewpoint of that which we can observe, we are justified in drawing this distinction. However, from the viewpoint of ultimate reality, the individual and the environment are one and inseparable. Life manifests itself in both a living subject and an objective environment.

"Life" indicates a subjective "self" that experiences the karmic effects of past actions. The environment is the objective realm where the karmic effects of life take shape. Environment here does not mean one overall context in which all beings live. Each living being has his or her own unique environment in which the effects of karma appear. The effects of one's karma, both good and bad, manifest themselves both in one's self and in the environment, because these are two integral phases of the same entity.

Since both life and its environment are one, whichever of the ten worlds an individual manifests internally will be mirrored in his or her environment. For example, a person in the state of Hell will perceive the environment to be hellish, while a person in the world of Animality will perceive the same environment as a jungle where only the strong survive. This idea has important implications. First, as already mentioned, we need not seek enlightenment in a particular place. Wherever we are, under whatever circumstances, we can bring forth our innate Buddhahood through the Buddhist practice, thus transforming our experience of our environment into the Buddha's land. This is an act of freedom whereby we liberate ourselves from control by circumstances. For example, if we sufficiently elevate our condition of life, we will not be crushed by adversity but can command the strength and wisdom to use it constructively for our own development.

Moreover, as we accumulate good karma through Buddhist practice, the effects of the karma will become apparent not only in ourselves but also in our environment, in the form of improved material circumstances, greater respect from others, and so forth.

From this standpoint, one's environment stretches out to encompass the whole dimension of space. Our enlightenment is therefore not confined to ourselves but exerts an influence on our families, communities, nations, and ultimately all humanity. The principle of the oneness of life and its environment is the rationale for asserting that the Buddhist practice of individuals will work a transformation in society. Buddhism expands the entire reality of life and shows the way to live a winning life -- the most fulfilled existence.