When you have the idea that VALUES are
actually driving us in doing the things we do. You can then change
VALUES, hence changing your beliefs about those VALUES and changing
your behaviour towards things/people and anything that you come into
contact with in your reality.
This explains why someone who love to
eat meat, may suddenly becomes a full time vegetarian. Many type of
experiences could have contributed to it. For example, they develop
certain health issues and decided to become vegetarian, because they
value HEALTH more than personal food satisfaction in their VALUES hierarchy.
Whereas for some people, they may have terminal disease, but would not even consider changing their diets. For this type of people, they would usually say “If I could not eat what I wanted to eat, life would be meaningless”. You can then know that they VALUE the taste of food more than survival itself. Because they have a high VALUE that Life Must be Meaningful. And for that to happen, they have a governing belief inside their head that says ' eating what you want to eat at any time is giving my life its meaning'.
Whereas for some people, they may have terminal disease, but would not even consider changing their diets. For this type of people, they would usually say “If I could not eat what I wanted to eat, life would be meaningless”. You can then know that they VALUE the taste of food more than survival itself. Because they have a high VALUE that Life Must be Meaningful. And for that to happen, they have a governing belief inside their head that says ' eating what you want to eat at any time is giving my life its meaning'.
Literally they would rather die than
not being able to eat what they want to eat. BUT this beliefs about
achieving the VALUE of Life Must be Meaningful is not helping them in
this situation. You want to know a big secret? They also don't know
that they have such damaging beliefs, sometime they pick it up when
they are small and don't understand much. Yet slowly it becomes an
important part of their life. If they are able to change their
beliefs from Life Must be Meaningful WHEN I am able to spend more
healthy times with my love ones – IMMEDIATELY this person can
change their diet preferences with no regrets, hang ups or any
chances of reverting back to their original way. All it takes is a
shift of beliefs to fulfill the VALUES that they hold.
Now comes the ultimate question, how do
we view VALUES in the context of Buddhism. Buddha in his ultimate
quest towards reaching enlightenment, is about how humans can be free
of suffering and be happy.
Teachings of Buddha often mention how
humans create suffering for themselves by clinging on towards what is
not real in their emotions and also physical things that we view as
permanent.
If we are ask enough questions to find
out about a person's high VALUE and what it ultimately means to them.
We will often discover one common word and emotion. And that is being
HAPPY.
For example, when you ask a person who
has a high VALUE on MONEY in their life, what does it mean to have
money in your life? They would answer something like ' so that I can
feel secure', 'I can do whatever I want , with whomever I want, at
any place I want' , ' so I can be free' . Then if you probe further,
'What does it mean to be free? ' What does it mean when you can feel
that sense of security?' What does it mean to be able to do all these
things?' Finally they would say that ' then I would feel truly
happy!'
Buddhism mentioned that all sentient
beings wants to be happy and to be free of suffering. And Buddhism
went a step further.
For all the VALUES that you may have and fulfilling those values, some of it are base of a 'false' perception. VALUES and BELIEFS based on material things, ability to evoke emotions, and people will not make a person happy forever. They will ultimately be causes of suffering for you. Because life itself is impermanent, material things, emotions and people will also one day be lost through time or separation upon your own death.
For all the VALUES that you may have and fulfilling those values, some of it are base of a 'false' perception. VALUES and BELIEFS based on material things, ability to evoke emotions, and people will not make a person happy forever. They will ultimately be causes of suffering for you. Because life itself is impermanent, material things, emotions and people will also one day be lost through time or separation upon your own death.
Because of the existence of Karma and
Reincarnation, you may have already experience many lifetimes as many
different people with different values. And because of attachments
towards those various false perceptions, the mind takes on
reincarnation again and again in hope to search for something that
provides ultimate happiness. But each time, we view those material
things, people, emotions as the source of our happiness, those in the
end will become our suffering and hence the cycle is unending.
To be free of suffering and be happy,
one would need to realized that the unending cycle itself is
emptiness. Emptiness here does not mean that it does not exist, but
realizing the sense of meaningless of attaching to things that are
not permanent if we look at it from across many lifetimes.
Then you may ask what are the VALUES of
Buddhism? Reducing attachments towards all things, in this sense even
reducing attachment towards the SELF. Without the SELF, there is no
EGO, hence no attachment of any kind. Meaning, SELFLESSNESS is one of
the higher VALUE in Buddhism. Why Selflessness? Because when we don't
think about the SELF, thinking about the happiness of others, the
welfare of others, then Compassion develops naturally and happiness
is realized automatically.
Buddhism encourages as human beings, we
need to collect more merits, do more good deeds in order to have the
wisdom to realized full Selflessness. Collecting merits and do good
deeds itself is an exercise towards being selfless. It is those
merits from the good deeds, that propels each rebirth to have a much
better chance of realizing the Values of Buddhism and finally being
able to achieve Enlightenment
Values in the Context of Buddhism,
needs a person to have a realization of how values actually governs
our life. And whether those values and beliefs are actually giving
the real happiness that we seek for not only in this life but in all
our future lives as well. To check on what are our current values,
whether they are aligned towards being more selfless or actually our
current value is aligned towards the self. If it is aligned towards
the self, we can never achieve lasting happiness. As most likely it
is only temporary.
A lot of people go through life,
behaving the way they behave without actually knowing what are the
things that are driving them. They often think, it is their birth
'gift' which sometimes can be a curse in disguise. The important realization
to have, is that we all have the power to change our values and beliefs.
Nobody is a victim of circumstances, all are only victims of their
own values and beliefs!
My short article here on VALUES and also BUDDHISM will never be extensive enough for you to know all about it, but if reading through this article creates enough curiosity in you to start searching for answers, then I would have achieve what I set out to write. And most likely it is written for you.
May you be Happy !
**Those who like to know more about Feng Shui, please visit my blog at http://gkhamconsulting.blogspot.com
May you be Happy !
**Those who like to know more about Feng Shui, please visit my blog at http://gkhamconsulting.blogspot.com
