Buddhism Arises When Peace Flourishes

Ultimate reality, being Nirvana, cannot happen in these desperate times, when few people realize the important of being calm yet vigilantly observant. In this world, it's a rush of birth, life and death, often repeated and filled with suffering.

Wars arise due to vast differences of culture fighting for resources, yet patient diplomacy might have achieved long-lasting compromises. Instead, evil karma dominates
in the form of terrorism, though now the people finally realize that peace requires vigilance in these uncertain times.

In the 21st century, the words of the Buddha fall on deaf ears:
"A warrior may have conquered
one thousand foes but he who
conquers himself is truly a warrior."

Likewise, the words of Mohammad's companion Jabir are forgotten: "You have arrived
with an excellent arrival, you have come from the Lesser Jihad — the striving
of a servant of Allah against his foes — to the Greater Jihad — the striving of a servant of Allah against his desires — the holy war that all Muslims must fight."

Instead, the only holy war is the lesser jihad, for a militant Millennialism is all that is left for the servants of Allah.

How can there be any peace then?

Forgotten is the peace of the Saracens, and the greatness of the Ummayad Caliphate
whose adminstration of al-Andalus brought peace to the Arabs, Berbers, Separdic Jews
of Eastern Europe, and the Musalimah until the taifa kingdoms arose.

Then the Inquisition forced out the Arabs and Jews, and resulted in the Conversos during the Reconquista, bringing suffering to pious Jews and Muslims alike.

Since then, the Hispanics suffered under the fascist regime of Franco but bloomed during the Carnation Revolution.

Today, Buddhism has enlightened Europe, with Tibetan and Zen being the most popular.
Humanistic Buddhism has replaced atheism both in Europe and in the Americas. Yet this has more to do with the peace found in the West, rather than war.

It appears that Buddhism arises in nations when peace prevails, which implies
that war-torn nations are not ready.

Even so, it is the duty of Buddhists everywhere to practice for the benefit of all sentient beings, rather than for attachment to the mind and the body. By doing to other sentient being that one does for the self, it is possible to await the time when all sentient beings come to know the Buddha willingly.

The Solution to Ego Addiction

Dialectic Behavior Therapy requires a trusted facilitator with a psychotherapy background to help the client realize that the root of his problems is ego addiction.

A brief definition of ego addiction is the unhealthy exercise of a person's ego which results in negative feelings of abandonment, grief, guilt, psychic pain, and remorse out of proportion with any given situation.

Furthermore, ego addiction may be harder to recover from, because the afflicted have only a vague concept of ego and how it arises; yet they cling to it strongly.

Easterners have a stronger concept of ego and its originations. This is why they reject psychiatry and the DSM. It also explains their belief in karma.

In the East, it isn't the ego that leads to mental illness.

Rather, it is clinging to the idea that the ego is a permanent entity to the point where one fears nonexistence, and strongly believes the self-as-neutral-observer to be a permanent soul.

For certain Easterners who have carefully studied esoteric Buddhism, the five senses and their organs are the five consciousnesses, the mind is the sixth, and the ego and that "soul" are the seventh and eighth consciousnesses.

For advanced meditators, relief from mental unrest is found by visualizing oneself as the deity (usually Amitabha Buddha) and where one is meditating as the mandala palace (the Pure Land). In Vajrayana Buddhism, it may be White Tara and her Pure Land.

Amida Buddha and his Pure Land of Bliss is actually the symbol for peace of mind.

Thus the solution to the mental unrest caused by ego addiction begins by first stilling the mind through meditation in a social setting conducive to it.

Then, as a result of dialog and practice with a trusted master (therapist), the practitioner behaves in a peaceful and non-violent manner.