A. The Rebel Saint.
Buddhism drew its lifeblood from
Hinduism, but against its prevailing corruptions Buddhism
recoiled like a whiplash and hit back - hard.
Buddha preached a religion devoid
of authority, devoid of ritual, a religion that skirted
speculation, devoid of tradition, a religion of intense
self-effort, devoid of supernatural.
Original Buddhism can be
characterized in the following terms:
empirical - experience was the
final test of truth
scientific - quality of lived
experience its final test
pragmatic - concerned with
problem solving
therapeutic - "One thing I
teach, suffering and the end of suffering."
psychological - begins with the
human lot, its problems, and the dynamics of coping with
them
egalitarian - women as capable
of enlightenment as men; rejected the caste system's
assumption that aptitudes were hereditary
directed to individuals -
each should proceed toward enlightenment through confronting
his or her individual situation and predicaments
B. The Four Noble Truths. - the
postulates from which the rest of his teachings logically derive
1. Life is suffering, is
dislocated, something has gone wrong.
2. The cause - all forms of
selfishness
Instead of linking our faith
and love and destiny to the whole, we persist in strapping
to puny burros of our separate selves, which are certain to
stumble and give out eventually.
3. Since the cause of life's
dislocation is selfish craving, its cure lies in the overcoming
of such craving.
4. The Forth Noble Truth prescribes
how the cure can be accomplished.
The way out of our captivity is
through the Eightfold Path.
C. The Eightfold Path. - it is a
treatment by training - by right association - We should associate
with Truthwinners, converse with them, serve them, observe their
ways, and imbibe by osmosis their spirit of love and compassion.
1. Right Views - The first step
summons us to make up our minds as to what life's problem
basically is.
2. Right Intent - The second
advises us to make up our hearts as to what we really want.
3. Right Speech
first become aware of our
speech
second move toward charity
4. Right Conduct
understand one's actions
change to the direction of
selflessness and charity
do not drink intoxicants
5. Right Livelihood - For the lay
person, Buddhism calls for engaging in occupations that promote
life instead of destroying it.
6. Right Effort - A low level of
volition, a mere wish not accompanied by effort or action to
obtain it - won't do.
7. Right Mindfulness
This seventh step summons the
seeker to steady awareness of every action that is taken,
and every content that turns up in one's stream of
consciousness.
Special times should be
allotted for undistracted introspection.
8. Right Concentration
This involves substantially the
techniques of Hinduism's raja yoga and leads to
substantially the same goal.
The final climactic state is
the state in which the human mind is completely absorbed in
God.
D. Basic Buddhist Concepts. -
Certain key notions in the Buddha's outlook
1. nirvana - Life's goal -
boundless life
2. anatta - The human self
has no soul
3. karma - One's acts
considered as fixing one's lot in the future existence
4. anicca - impermanence,
everything finite is transitory
5. Arhat -
a Buddhist who has reached the stage
of enlightenment
Do human beings survive bodily
death? - his answer is equivocal
E. Big Raft and Little. - Two main
Paths in Buddhism
Buddhism divided over three
questions: are people independent or interdependent, is the
universe friendly or hostile toward creatures, and what is the
best part of the human self, its head or its heart.
One group says "Be lamps unto your
selves, work out your salvation with diligence"
For the other group, human beings
are more social than individual, and love is the greatest thing
in the world.
The division into the two main
paths is schematized as follows:
|
THERAVADA |
MAHAYANA |
| Human beings are emancipated by self-effort, with
out supernatural aid. |
Human aspirations are supported by
divine powers and the grace they bestow. |
| Key virtue: wisdom |
Key virtue: compassion |
| Attainment requires constant commitment,
and is primarily for monks and nuns. |
Religious practice is
relevant to life in the world, and therefore to
laypeople. |
| Ideal: the Arhat who remains in nirvana
after death |
Ideal: the boddhisattva |
| Buddha a saint, supreme teacher, and inspirer. |
Buddha a savior |
| Minimizes metaphysics |
Elaborates metaphysics |
| Minimizes ritual |
Emphasizes ritual |
| Practice centers on meditation |
Includes petitionary prayer |
After Buddhism split into Thervada and Mahayana, Theravada
continued as a fairly unified tradition, whereas Mahayana
divided into a number of denominations or schools. The two with
the most influence in western society, Zen Buddhism and Tibetan
Buddhism are discussed next.
F. The Secret of the Flower. - Zen
Buddhism
Buddhism that Taoism profoundly
influenced, Ch'an (Zen in Japanese)
It makes breaking the language
barrier its central concern.
Strains by every means to blast
their novices out of solutions that are only verbal.
Zen masters are determined that
their students attain the experience itself, not allow talk to
take its place.
By paradox and non sequitur Zen
provokes, excites, exasperates, and eventually exhausts the mind
until until it sees that thinking is never more than thinking about, or feeling more than feeling
for.
It counts on a flash of sudden
insight to bridge the gap between secondhand and firsthand life.
Zen's object is to infuse the
temporal with the eternal.
A condition in which life seems
distinctly good
Also comes an objective outlook
on one's relation to others.
The life of Zen does not draw
one away from the world; it turns one to the world.
An attitude of generalized
agreeableness
Even the dichotomy between life
and death disappears.
G. The Diamond Thunderbolt. - Tibetan
Buddhism
The Tibetans say that their
religion is nowise distinctive in its goal. What distinguishes
their practice is that it enables one to reach nervana in
a single lifetime. They say that the speed-up is effected
by utilizing all the energies latent in the human make-up ,
those of the body emphatically included, and impressing them all into the service of the spiritual quest.
The energy that interests the West
most is sex, but the physical energies they most regularly work
with are the ones that are involved with speech, vision, and
gestures.
Tibetan Buddhism distinctiveness
also includes a unique institution - The Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama is a receiving
station toward which the compassion-principle of Buddhism in all
its cosmic amplitude is continuously channeled, to radiate
thence to the Tibetan people most directly, but by extension to
all sentient beings.
H. The Image of the Crossing.
Do the various Paths of Buddhism
deserve to be considered aspects of a single religion?
Yes, in two ways:
(1.) They all revere a single
founder from whom they claim their teachings derive.
(2.) All can be subsumed under a
single metaphor - the image of the crossing.
Buddhism is a voyage across
life's river, a transport from the common-sense shore of
ignorance, grasping, and death, to the further bank of
wisdom and enlightenment.
Before the river was crossed
the two shores, human and divine, had to appear distinct
from each other, different as life and death, as day and
night. But once the crossing has been made, no dichotomy
remains. The realm of the gods is not a distinct place. It
is where the traveler stands; and if that stance happens to
be in this world, the world itself is transmuted.
Today Buddhists abound in every Asian
land except India, the land of its birth.
The deeper fact is that in India Buddhism was not so much defeated
by Hinduism as accommodated within it.
Its contributions, accepted by Hindus in principle if not always
practice, included its renewed emphasis on kindness to all living
things, on non-killing of animals, on the elimination of caste
barriers in matters religious and their reduction in matters social,
and its strong ethical emphasis generally.