Buddhability Short: How to face the thing you've been avoiding

Buddhability

SGI-USA

Health & Fitness, Self-help, Self-care, Religion & Spirituality, Mental Health, Buddhism

4.9 • 603 Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today’s Short, we talk about how to do the thing we’ve said we would do for days, months or years. Buddhability Shorts is a series where we break down a Buddhist concept or common life challenge we’ve touched on in an interview.

Resources:
Discussions on Youth, pp. 98, 262, 395.

The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 2, revised edition, pp. 5, 103.

The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol 1, p. 279.

Reach out to us at [email protected] to get connected with a Buddhability community near you.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From SGI USA, I'm Cassidy Bradford, and this is Budability.
0:07.0	The weekly series where I talk with Buddhists from all walks of life about the power we each have to change our lives and the world around us.
0:31.5	As my relationship with my partner was getting more serious, I realized I would eventually need to come out to my grandma, so I told myself I would do it.
0:39.9	I even told some Buddhist friends that it was my goal for the year. But the years came and went. Eventually, it had been maybe three or four years of me telling myself that I would do it, but never quite having the
0:46.0	guts. I'd make excuses or other things would become a priority. But as I chanted more and more,
0:53.4	the fear and worry started to melt away. I remember
0:57.8	feeling confident that I'd be okay no matter what her response. I loved my life and the person I was.
1:05.5	So one day my grandma calls me and we're just catching up and as we wind down I say grandma there's something
1:12.6	I need to tell you I'm gay she says well are you happy I say yes then she says well that's all
1:24.2	that matters then the weight of my fear and inaction disappeared.
1:30.3	I was so proud of the courage and confidence I developed.
1:35.3	Each time I told someone my goal, enchanted about it,
1:38.3	I had to summon up courage, just to try to believe that I could make it happen. Sometimes taking action can be accomplishing a
1:47.6	big goal like that. But really, those are just the accumulation of many small daily efforts,
1:53.4	sitting down to chant in the morning when you'd rather sit on your phone, calling the friend
1:58.3	back who's been trying to get a hold of you. Our lives are the accumulation of many small actions in thought, word, and deed.
2:05.6	Today we're talking about how to become people of action, someone who does what they say they will.
2:12.6	The 13th century Buddhist reformer, Nietzschean Dishonan, famously shared,
2:17.7	If you want to understand the causes that existed in the past, look at the results as they are manifested in the present.
2:25.3	And if you want to understand what results are manifested in the future, look at the causes that exist in the present.
2:33.3	Buddhism teaches through the concept of karma that our lives are the accumulation of our actions.
2:40.4	So the action we take today has a direct impact on our lives today and in the future.
	...

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