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On Buddha and Buddhism
Buddha, the man, is perhaps the best example of a mere human being who lived
up to his highest divine potentials. Born a Hindu in 563 B.C. in what is now Nepal, his
given name was Siddhartha, and his family name was Gautama.
Legend has it that when Siddhartha Gautama was born, a prophesy reached his
father’s ears that he would either become a great world conqueror or a great spiritual
leader. His father, who ruled a small kingdom in what was then India, wanted none of the
latter for his son, and set out to make sure that the gifted and handsome boy was raised in
such a way that the his destiny would fulfill his father’s dreams for earthly power.
Siddhartha’s upbringing is said to
have been luxurious, and all efforts were
taken to see that his every desire was
indulged. But despite his sequestered
youth, it was inevitable that he would
ultimately become aware of the realities
of suffering in the world. And sure
enough, when one day Siddhartha
escaped the attention of his attendants
and the confines of the palace, he
discovered as he wandered the streets f a
nearby town the realities of poverty,
disease, old age, and death. And when
this knowledge took root in the heart of
the thoughtful boy, so did the many other paths he might take through life.
With this revelation, Siddhartha lost his appetite for the pleasures and indulgences
he had enjoyed throughout his early life, and renounced the external riches that had
nearly spoiled his character, and turned him into a person even he could not respect.
Siddhartha remembered having had an experience as a boy during which he
achieved an uncommon level of absorption, one which he recognized as the first step on
“the way to enlightenment.” It was as much out of nostalgia for more of this deep
experience, as it was disillusionment with the overindulgence of life as he knew it, that
put him on the path of spiritual growth…not merely toward a new philosophy, but a
”change into a different kind of creature.”(Smith, 75) He desired to change himself from
one with a poorly focused mind into one that sees clearly by “direct perception,” to be
free of the “three poisons” of “’extirpation of delusion, craving, and hostility.’”(Smith,
75)
Siddhartha Gautama was twenty-nine when he bid his wife and child silent
goodbye in the night, and went out into the world in search of truth. He shed his fine
clothes and set out first to learn what he could from his elders, the Hindu masters. He
joined a band of ascetics, and for six years outdid his teachers in austerity. But eventually
Gautama grew weak, and came to see the wisdom of what he would call ‘The Middle
Way’ between the extremes of self-sacrifice and indulgence.
[*golden mean…]
Sidharths’s final enlightenment story is “reminiscent of Jesus in the
desert.”(Smith, 63) Sensing that a breakthrough was at hand, Gautama sat down one
evening under what came to be known as the Bodhi (enlightenment) tree, and faced the
final temptations of Mara, the evil one. These included sexual temptation and all manner
of human pleasures, as well as shame for the audacity of his quest. But Gautama was not
discouraged. When tempted finally to give up his mission on the grounds that mere
human beings would never get his message, Buddha resolved that, “There will be some
who will understand.”(Smith, 63) And so his temptations were ended, and with this
Gautama became Buddha, the enlightened one.
For the next 45 years, Buddha “maintained an interminable schedule of public
preaching and private counseling.”(Smith, 63) His life “was powered by a strong sense of
mission,” for “he saw in his mind’s eye the whole of humanity – people milling and lost,
desperately in need of help and guidance.”(Smith, 64)
Buddha practiced a “pattern of withdrawal and return,” in which he moved
between his work with others and his work on himself. Each day, month, and year was
divided up into portions, and just as “each year was…divided between nine months of
teaching and three months in retreat,” so “His daily cycle, too, followed this mold. Three
times each day he withdrew from his duties to meditate.”(Smith, 63)
Like Socrates, “Buddha
was gifted with preternatural
insight into character,” and
while “surface distinctions
meant so little to him that he
often failed to notice them,” he
was able to see, where he found
it, “the marks of sainthood” in
others too -- ‘shining within
[them] like a lamp in a
jar.”(Smith, 64) He was
“[A]ble to size up, almost at
sight,
the
people
who
approached him, he seemed never to be taken in by appearances but would move at once
to what was essential.”(Smith, 64)
Like Socrates, Buddha did not put himself above others, and “made no attempt to
conceal his temptations and weaknesses – how difficult it had been to attain
enlightenment, how narrow the margin by which he had won through, how fallible he still
remained.”(Smith, 64) “It is perhaps inaccurate to speak of the Buddha as modest, for he
knew he had risen to a plane of understanding above others.”(Smith, 64) But he was
humble in knowing this was not out of the reach of all, and lived to set an example.
In his self-regulating humility, he was not above asking his students, “I summon
you, disciples, to tell me: have you any fault to find with me in word or in deed?”(Smith,
64) No one was ever more human, but even still, “there was constant pressure during his
lifetime to turn him into a god.”(Smith, 64)
He was often asked, ‘What are you?’ ‘Are you a god? An angel? A saint?
Buddha answered, ‘I am awake.’(Smith, 60)
And so Buddha got his name from “The Sanskrit root budh,” which “ means to
awake and to know.”(Smith, 60)
Buddha, like sages before him, “saw ignorance, not sin, but as life’s prime
adversary.”(Smith, 75) “All we are is the result of what we have thought.’”(Smith, 75,
from The Dhammapada) Feelings, moods, and emotions are “not permanent parts of
us,”(Smith, 75) and while it is wise to understand and even enjoy them, it is unwise to
react to them in such a way as to give them power over our actions. To “keep the mind in
control of the senses and impulses, rather than being driven by them,”(Smith, 75) is
necessary to overcome ignorance, because “freedom – liberation from unconscious,
mechanical existence – is the product of self-awareness.”(Smith, 75) Buddha was a
rationalist, to be sure, and indeed, “Every problem that came his way was subjected to
cool, dispassionate analysis,” but it was “balanced by a Franciscan tenderness…and
infinite compassion.”(Smith, 64)
Buddha refused to speculate on what cannot be known in this life. Buddha’s
teachings were “devoid of the supernatural” elements that so many religions are founded
on. Buddha did not adhere to the idea of a personal God, but did seem to think that
something like it (what one follower likened to the wind) does exist, but defies
expression, and indeed is “incomprehensible, indescribable, inconceivable and
unutterable.’”(Smith, 77) Like Aristotle, he distinguished between “the formed, the
made, the compounded” (Smith, 77), and the “Unborn, neither become nor created nor
formed,” putting the Godhead, Brahman, and nirvana in this camp of that which is
unconditioned, “permanent, stable, imperishable, immovable, ageless, deathless, unborn,
and unbecome.” (Smith, 77)
He also abhorred the apparent fatalism of the reincarnation cycle that suggested
there was nothing could be done to advance the process but endure it. By his lights, the
body has no soul, per se (atta in Pali, atman in Sanskrit) that moves and survives it. The
spirit’s existence after
death is neither of the
extremes we tend to
wonder about, not a
continuation
of
consciousness, nor an end
to it. “Authentic child of
India, he did not doubt that
reincarnation was a fact,
but he disagreed with the
way
his
Brahamic
contemporaries conceived
of it – as some sort of
psychic pellet that migrated
from body to body. Rather,
his alternative view is captured by the image of a wave.”(Smith, 78) “Verb rather than
nouns fit his world view, for everything is in process, everything is in change…
everything is impermanent, transitory, and yes, dying.”(Smith, 78) “’Waves follow one
another in eternal pursuit.’” “It is a single wave, and “Yet at no two moments are its
molecules identical.”(Smith, 78) Likewise, ’Life is a journey; death is a return to earth.
The universe is an inn; the passing years are like dust.’”(Smith, 78) “We cannot say
much with certainty [about life after death, but…” while identification with one’s
historical experience may disappear, experience itself may continue and be enhanced.
“Nothing that is in my next incarnation will be identical with what is in me now,
but I will still be ‘me’ in the way the wave retained its identity while moving through it
successive stages… What continues from life to life and unites them is…a causal chain of
karmic propensities. Causal connection…but no entity…passes from life to life…subject
always, never object.”(Smith, 78)
“As an inconsequential dream vanishes completely on awakening, as the stars go
out in deference to the morning sun, so individual awareness will be eclipsed in the
blazing light of total realization.”(Smith, 79)
Buddha postulated Four Nobel Truths. They include:
1. Recognizing that “life as it is normally lived,”(Smith, 70) is suffering,
or dukkha, which “restricts movement (blocks creativity), and causes
undue friction (interpersonal conflict).”(Smith, 71) This is worst when
“life’s shoe pinches” most during disease, trauma, old age and
approaching death. (Smith, 71) But “There is a path to the end of
suffering,” he insisted. “Tread it!”(Smith, 68)
2. Recognizing that life can be regenerated, as we come to understand
tanha, the cause of dukkha, that is, the desire for private good, “selfish
inclinations that make demands for oneself at the expense, if necessary, of
others.”(Smith, 71) In this sense, “tis the self by which we suffer.”(Smith,
71);
3. Recognizing that tanha, the cause of suffering, which is selfishness and
narrow self-interest, can be overcome;
4. As Buddha was a physician of the spirit, Buddhism treats the symptoms
that cause suffering, conflict, and diminish creativity as “life’s crippling
disability.”(Smith, 72) Diagnosis of the cause is tanha, or ego, “the
devouring
cancer
that
causes
sorrow.”(Smith, 71)
Thus, it is the
craving for that
which isn’t actually
good for us that
makes us unhappy.
But we can remove
the
cause
by
understanding and
pursuing what is
actually good for us
-- and the cure involves a course of treatment that is the Eightfold
Path.(Smith, 72)
The Eightfold Path includes:
1. Right knowledge, which is to say, begin with the lay of the land, things
“as they really are,” which is knowledge of the Four Nobel Truths, the
fourth of which is the Eightfold Path;
2. Right aspiration, notice what it is we really want, not merely the means,
but the ends, rising above distracting wants, rising above toward
liberation;
3. Right speech, one of three “switches that control our destiny,”(Smith,
74) little do most of us realize how often we deviate from truth, let alone
use language to mean-spirited ends;
4. Right behavior, means do not overindulge in that which corrupts the
spirit. Some take this to mean abstinence, but as balance is a key value in
the Buddhist way, it is more likely that the Golden Mean should govern
our desires;
5. Right livelihood, as work occupies so much of our waking attention,
one must choose an occupation that does not conflict with or pull against
our spiritual progress, such as various form so of profiteering.(Smith, 75);
6. Right effort, meaning “moral exertion” of the will. Buddha said, “Those
who follow the Way might well follow the example of an ox that marches
through the deep mire carrying a heavy load. He is tired, but his steady,
forward-looking gaze will not relax until he comes out of the mire. Only
then does he relax. …remember that…you can escape misery only by
earnestly and steadfastly preserving in the Way.”(Smith, 75);
7. Right mindfulness, meaning continuous self-examination so “to see
everything ‘as it really is.’”(Smith, 75)
8. Right absorption, not unlike raja yoga in its goal.(Smith, 75)
“Unlike Hinduism, which emerged by slow, spiritual accretion, the religion of the
Buddha appeared overnight. In large measure it was a reaction to Hindu
perversions.”(Smith, 67) Buddha “ridiculed the Brahamic rites” as mere superstitions,
mere “trappings – irrelevant to the hard, demanding job of ego-reduction.”(Smith)
Indeed, Buddhism, as a religion, “arose out of celebration and its opposite,
bereavement, both of which cry out for collective expression. When tragedy strikes or we
all but explode with joy, we want to be with other people.”(Smith, 67)
All the same, Buddha rejected the six features of religion that Hinduism and most
other organized forms since have championed, including authority, ritual, explanations,
traditions, grace, and mystery. In Buddha’s day, the authority of religion “had become
hereditary and exploitative,” rituals “had become mechanical,” explanations “had lost
their experiential base,” tradition “had become dead weight,” grace “was being misread
in ways that undercut human responsibility,” and mystery had led to a “perverse
obsession with miracles.”(Smith, 67)
Buddhism emerged in the beginning as “a religion almost entirely devoid of each”
of these. Buddha rejected authority and tradition, “challenged individuals to take
responsibility for their lives,”(Smith 68) He denied that mere grace can save us, and
though that “mystery was confused with mystification.”(Smith, 67) He taught, rather, that
“’This our worldly life is an activity of nirvana itself. Not the slightest distinction exists
between them.’”(Smith, 96) “’This earth on which we stand, is the promised Lotus Land,
And this very body is the body of the Buddha.’”(Smith, 96)
So “Do not go by what is handed down, nor by the authority of your traditional
teachings,” he said. “When you know of yourselves, ‘These teachings are good or not
good,’ only then accept or reject them.”(Smith, 69) Rather than follow the directions of a
priesthood, he said, “Do not accept what you hear by report, Be lamps unto
yourselves.”(Smith, 68) 68)
And like Socrates and other who have taken this position, Buddha “accepted in
return the resentment, queries, and bewilderment his stance provoked.”(Smith, 63)
Buddha “did not commit his teaching to writing,”(Smith, 77) but within a century
and a half a plethora of writers poured forth ideas that were “consistent enough to permit
us to think that they came from the Buddha himself.”(Smith, 77) (Examples of
Buddhism’s culminating texts include the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, Pali Canon, and
The Dhammapada.)
Different forms of Buddhism share a common metaphor in understanding the path
to spiritual growth as being a voyage across life’s river from the bank of ignorance to the
shore of wisdom and enlightenment. The two shores of this river of ignorance…are one
human, one divine, and crossing it, one sees that the practices of Buddhism (e.g. the
Eightfold Path) “are vitally important to the individual while he is making the crossing,
but they lose their relevance
for
those
who
have
arrived.”(Smith,
95)
“Travel…erases lines of
division, the [traveler] now
sees in his original world
[what] he had to travel to
first discover.”(Smith, 96)
“The realm of the gods is no
distinct place; it is where the
traveler now stands. And if
he returns to his original home, he sees it from the perspective his travels have
imparted.”(Smith, 96)
“Where to eagle vision the river can still be seen, it is seen as connecting the two
banks, rather than separating them.”(Smith, 96) “Insight has dissolved the opposites that
reason pushed apart.”(Smith, 96) “The noisy disjunction between acceptance and
rejection having been stilled, every moment is affirmed for what it actually it. It is Indra’s
cosmic net, laced with jewels at every intersection; each jewel reflects the others,
together with the reflections in the others.”(Smith, 96)
Thus, the basic differences in forms of Buddhism are understood to be merely
different kinds of ferryboats or rafts (yanas), 1. the little raft, 2. the big raft, and 3. the
diamond raft…each a different way of traveling in the hero’s spiritual process. At first,
the bank underfoot seems solid, and the far away bank seems beyond reality, and it will
seem this way until something prompts us to want to learn what’s on the other side. If we
decide to make the journey, we may travel as individuals in a boat we build ourselves,
and this is the ‘little raft,’ called Hinayana (hina=little). This raft if for “those who,
relying upon themselves only, not looking for assistance to anyone besides themselves.”
According to Hinayana Buddhists, “it is they who will reach the topmost height.”(Smith,
68) “’No on saves us but ourselves; no one can and no one may. We ourselves must tread
the Path; Buddha only shows the way.’”(Smith, 82) Hinayana Buddhist hold that
“progress [comes] through wisdom, not grace,”(Smith, 81) and so we must, “’Work out
your own salvation with diligence.’”(Smith, 81) In the original texts of the Pali Canon
(Smith, 81), the little way is conservative, more monastic. They saw Buddha as a teacher
and sage, and saw Buddhism “as a full-time job.”(Smith, 81) It is practiced in this form in
Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia.
By contrast, Mahayana means ‘great raft’ (maha=great), but such Buddhists
prefer the term Theravadic, meaning The Way of the Elders. This vessel is a bigger boat
that takes an entire group “the great way.” It tends to be more liberal, to hold a higher
opinion of women and laity, and to see Buddha as a savior, the bodhisattva, who “works
on our behalf.”(Smith, 82) Such a bodhisattva is “a person who vows not to enter nirvana
‘until the grass itself is enlightened.’”(Smith, 84-85)
Buddhism was also manifest in a third form, called the diamond raft, considered
first by its proponents because a diamond cuts other substances, but cannot be cut itself.
Called Vajrayana Buddhism, it symbolizes power, interrelatedness, and interwoven lives
during which developing the strength to realize compassion and wisdom is thought to be
able to advance one to nirvana in a single lifetime. This is accomplished, not by denying
the senses, but by using them all to their fullest. Hence the adherence of some of its
devotes to Tantric sex, that is, “sexual love [which] is the divine’s clearest epiphany. At
the moment of mutual climax, where what each most wants is what the other most wants
to give, it is impossible to say whether the experience is more physical or spiritual, or
whether the lovers sense themselves to be two or one.”(*) This much is understood about
sexuality in most religions, but what Zen and raja yoga try to rise above, the Tantric
Buddhists celebrate and aim to master the art of. “What distinguishes Tantra is the way it
wholeheartedly espouses sex as a spiritual ally, working with it intentionally and
explicitly…” Indeed, “Only one of the four Tibetan…orders is celibate.” (Smith, 92)
This includes Tibetan Buddhism, of which the Dalai Lama is considered the
leader. He is said to have been incarnated thirteen times in the last several centuries “for
the purpose empowerment and regeneration of the Tibetan tradition,” who consider
themselves to be the souls of this planet “as rain forests are to the earth’s
atmosphere.”(Smith, 93) Vajrayana Buddhist hold that one can be accelerated to nirvana
in a single life
Zen Buddhism was profoundly influenced by Taoism. Followers of Zen
“discerned in (Gautama’s) message a higher, subtler teaching”(Smith, 87) that “cannot be
impounded in words.”(Smith, 88) This is the same reason Buddha was called
“Sakyamuni, ‘silent sage (muni) of the Sakya clan,’” for he was a “symbol of something
that could not be described.”(Smith, 65) Keenly aware of the limitations of language,
Zen Buddhism – which came some time later -- is profoundly experiential. “From the
Zen perspective, reason is too short a ladder to reach to truth’s full height.”(Smith, 89)
For words are not meaning, in the same way that a menu is not a meal and a map is not
that which it describes.(Smith, 89) “The mind has other ways of working than its normal,
rational way, Zen is convinced; and it is these latent ways that zazen is designed to call
into action.”(Smith, 89) So practitioners of Zen supplement them with koans, which
means problems or riddles that aim to illuminate by insight what is beyond words. “By
paradox and non sequitur [the use of koans] provokes, excites, exasperates and eventually
exhausts the rational mind until it sees that thinking is never more than thinking about.”
Instead, “it counts on a flash of insight to bridge the gap between secondhand and
firsthand life.”(Smith, 89) “Though its preparation may take years, the experience itself
comes in a flash, exploding like a silent rocket in the unconscious mind to throw new
light on everything.” (Smith, 90)
Satori, like gnosis, is “an intuitive experience,”(Smith, 90) what the jnana yogi
might consider “an intuitive discernment that transforms the knower into the likeness of
what it knows,”(Smith, 27) which is, in a sense, “the culmination of the religious
quest.”(Smith, 90) It “brings joy, at-one-ment, and a sense of reality that defies ordinary
language.”(Smith, 90) “Wisdom (bodhi),” is understood as “profound insight into the
nature of reality, the causes of anxiety and suffering, and the absence of a separate, selfexistent core of selfhood.”(Smith, 82) The arhat is said to be the ideal, and nirvana is the
goal of life. The root of the word nirvana is “to extinguish” or “to blow out” those private
desires that blur vision and restrict life, but nirvana itself is an experience so far beyond
the power of words that Buddhism is nearly silent on it, except to say, “’Bliss, yes bliss,
my friends, is nirvana.’”(Smith, 77)
Simply put, Zen facilitates “a sense of life’s goodness,”(Smith, 91) “’you wake up
in the morning and the world seems so beautiful you can hardly stand it.’” Second, it
habituates “an objective outlook on ones relation to others; their welfare seems as
important as one’s own.”(Smith, 91) “Dualisms dissolve, and one feels grateful to the
past and responsible to the present and future.”(Smith, 91) Zen breeds “determination to
fuse the temporal and the eternal; to widen the doors of perception so the wonder of the
satori experience can flood everyday life.”(Smith, 90)
Zen returns to “a world newly perceived,”(Smith, 91) able to see the divinely
extraordinary in the ordinary, and to “discovery of the infinite in the finite.”(Smith, 91) It
keeps us in harmony with daily activities, as “’Drawing water, carrying firewood, This is
supernatural power, this the marvelous activity.’”(Smith, 91) “If you cannot find the
meaning of life in an act as simple as that of doing the dishes, you will find it
nowhere.”(Smith, 91) “What is the most miraculous of all miracles? That I sit quietly by
myself.”(Smith, 91) Zen breeds “a spirit of utter tranquility combine to epitomize the
harmony, respect, clarity, and calm that characterize Zen at its best.”(Smith, 91) It helps
us “to pass beyond the opposites of preference and rejection,” to an attitude of acceptance
and agreeableness, to take things as they come.(Smith, 91) A king once remarked, on
observing an assembly of perfectly disciplined monks, “Would that my son might have
such calm.”(Smith, 64)
Smith emphasizes that Buddhism was originally (and at heart, still is) unique and
instructive in just these ways:
First, it is empirical, meaning it asks us not to take anyone’s word for anything.
Rather, “A true disciple must know for himself.”(Smith, 68)
Secondly, it is scientific, meaning it asks us to see for ourselves by testing it in
“the quality of [our] lived experience.”(Smith, 68)
Thirdly, it is pragmatic, in that “Buddha likened his teachings to tools whose
value is in their usefulness; as a “raft that help people cross rivers, but are burdens
thereafter.”(Smith, 68) “We nevertheless remember our gratitude for the splendid ship
and crew who have brought us safely to what promises to be a rewarding land.”(Smith,
95)
Forth, it is therapeutic, as Buddha put it – there is “One thing I teach, suffering
and the end of suffering. It is only ill and the ceasing of ill that I proclaim.”(Smith, 68)
“There is a path to the end of suffering,” he said; “tread it!”(*)
Fifth, it is psychological, in that “Buddha began with the human predicament and
the solution it called for.”(Smith, 69)
Sixth, it is egalitarian, in that “Buddha rejected both the inequalities of the Hindu
caste system and the traditional prejudice against women.”(Smith, 69) “He insisted that
women were as capable of enlightenment as men. And he rejected the caste system’s
assumption that aptitudes were hereditary.”(Smith, 69).
And lastly, ancient Buddhism was directed to individuals, in that Buddha
“appealed to the secret workings of the inward heart.”(Smith, 69)
In keeping with his observation, that “All compounds grow old,”(Smith 63)
Buddha ultimately died after eating poisoned mushrooms. And despite all his efforts
during his lifetime to keep his a faith of the individual human spirit, “all the
accouterments that he had labored to protect his religion from came tumbling into it”
after his death, “but as long as he lived he kept them at bay.”(Smith, 68)
Buddhism was ultimately vanquished in India, the land of its birth, but Buddha’s
teaching “was not so much defeated by Hinduism as accommodated within it.”(Smith,
97) As Mahayana organization set in, “Buddhist teachings came to sound increasingly
like Hindu ones.”(Smith, 97) Indeed, “almost all of Buddhism’s affirmative doctrines
found their place or parallel” in Hinduism, including “its strong ethical emphasis
generally”…its “stress on kindness to all creatures, on non-killing of animals, on the
elimination [or reduction] of caster-barriers.”(Smith, 97)
Paradoxically, a wisdom tradition that began by denying authority, ritual,
speculation, grace, mystery, and a personal God, ended up embracing them. “Thus in the
end the wheel comes full circle. The religion that began as a revolt against rites,
speculation, grace, and the supernatural, ends with all of them back in force and its
founder (who was an atheist as far as a personal God was concerned) transformed into
such a God himself.”(Smith, 85)
Three questions are left for us to ponder, Smith says: 1. Should individuality or
mutuality predominate? 2. Is the universe friendly, indifferent, or hostile? 3. And should
reason or compassion, mind or heart, lead us? Which is the better part of humanity? He
puts these to us, along with the added question -- would the ancients themselves even
consider such questions relevant?
Isn’t the real challenge not either/or, not to choose between compliments, but to
reconcile them? Isn’t that how the universe is rendered friendly, rather than hostile?
Perhaps Confucius and his Taoists compliment can help us either answer these questions,
or dismiss them. As Buddha said, “insight dissolves divisions,” until “what each most
wants is what the other most wants to give.”(*)