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Swimming with the current

When I was in the sixth form at school, I took an “O” level in Comparative Religion. Although the textbook was biased towards Christianity; having read the book, my leaning was towards Buddhism. However I did not follow it up at the time.

Some twenty years later I began learning Tai Chi and became interested in Taoism and alternative healing practices, through which I met a teacher of Samatha meditation who taught at a centre in Manchester. At the time I was going through a number of personal problems, having been made redundant and having lost my father. Therefore, I asked to learn meditation as a means of controlling my anxieties.

What I liked about these teachings was learning the process of meditation through the various steps without having to accept the tenets of Buddhism. What particularly appealed was the invitation to try some of the practical aspects, such as undertaking the precepts, although only to accept them if they worked for me. I did follow this approach but at first adopted a very relaxed attitude towards them.

It was interesting to note that after a year or so I realised they were having a slow but subtle way of rounding off certain points of my character – my explosive temper reduced (never eliminated!), wasps were not hit with a newspaper, spiders left alone and my wife commented to others that I was not as stubborn as I used to be.

It took a good few years meditating to realise that looking for “enlightenment” seemed to be getting me nowhere, until I realised that my “looking” was really “attachment” to the concept. Once I realised “attachment” was a central aspect of the teachings and I tried adopting a view of “non-attachment” then my progress through life became much easier – in Taoism they teach not to swim across a river by fighting the current, but to swim with it and slowly gain the opposite bank.

The aspect of Buddhist teaching I enjoy is that you can simply practise the meditation process and learn from it, bringing it into your everyday life to make life more understandable. However, if you are the type who wishes to explore the teachings in more depth, then there is enormous scope for fruitful investigation.