Truth

Written by Upasika Lynne

There are many discussions on what exactly is truth. The Buddha teachings, called The Dhamma are the truth and about what is true. He taught and once told his followers not to believe him. This statement shocks and surprises some people. What he meant was for us to try for ourselves and then we could know for ourselves and not merely believe another. It seems to me that the meaning of truth is reality. Truth is reality and reality is truth. You may say reality of what? All I can say is reality in everything, everywhere and all the time.

What if we don’t like our reality at this present time? What can we do about that?
This question made me really think and the clue to the answer has to be in the question itself and it is, that we don’t like. Because whether we like a situation or not it is still as it is. Situations change though and we can help them to change by our actions.
In living our lives through its ups and downs we develop likes and dislikes and so many opinions. We become like a ball of string and we tie so many knots into it, if we can bit by bit unravel our string then maybe we can and will see things in a clearer way.
There is no quick way to do this, after all we spent a lot of time and energy getting to be the way we are today, so it stands to reason that it’s going to take a lot of time to unravel our string. But we can start and once we do that, we are on our way. If we don’t start, well we will just keep on tying more knots. Sounds uncomfortable, doesn’t it?
Meditation helps us, initially it helps us to relax and when we are calmer and relaxed there are fewer obstacles to block our way. Then we begin to see the knots we have tied. We can look at them. Sometimes, then we can discover a way to unravel, other times we can simply be aware of them and loosen them a little. The main thing is we can see them and by doing that it leads us just that little bit closer to the truth. We see traits and habits that we claimed to own, in fact they were never owned by us, only borrowed. We all know that it’s impolite not to return borrowed items. If we are one hundred per cent happy and content with the way we are then we need never try this method. If by chance we would prefer a change in ourselves and our outlook on life then it’s probably worth giving meditation a try. That way you can see for yourself.

When I first seriously started to practice and learn the teachings here at the Temple I asked so many questions of the monks. Why is this and how is that? My questions were always answered, they were usually answered in a way that would allow me to work the answers out for myself, by myself. I can see now that this was and is a way to teach that allows us to know ourselves and not just hear from someone else.

I am grateful to the teachers here who spent so much time with me on the beginning of my journey. New people come here all the time ready and eager to learn the meditation technique that is taught here. They can be assured that they will get all the help and support they need.