Fundamentals of Buddhism by Dr. Peter D. Santinaism - HTML preview

Fundamentals of Buddhism

Dr Peter D. Santina

 

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E-mail: bdea@buddhanet.net Web site: www.buddhanet.net
Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc.
CONTENTS

 

FOREWORD 1

 

BUDDHISM — A MODERN PERSPECTIVE 3

 

I. THE PREBUDDHIST BACKGROUND 12

 

II. LIFE OF THE BUDDHA 21

 

III. THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS PART I 28

 

IV. THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS PART II 41

 

V. MORALITY 49

 

VI. MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 59

 

VII. WISDOM 69

 

VIII. KARMA 80

 

IX. REBIRTH 90

 

X. DEPENDENT ORIGINATION 103

 

XI. THE THREE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTICS 113

 

XII. THE FIVE AGGREGATES 125

 

CONCLUSION 133

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

THE GIFT OF TRUTH EXCELS ALL GIFTS. BY THE MERIT OF THIS VIRTUE, MAY ALL THE SPONSORS BE WELL AND HAPPY, AND ATTAIN THE BLISS OF NIRVANA.

FOREWORD

Buddhism has long been an important part of the cultural heritage of South East Asia. The monuments of Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Borobudur in Indonesia are just two of countless testimonies to the former greatness of Buddhism in this region. In Singapore too Buddhism is an important element in the cultural heritage of the people. The fact that a large section of the Chinese Community as well as the small but influential Srilankan Community acknowledge Buddhism as the primary force shaping their religious ideals and moral values is more than proof of this. Nonetheless, it is certain that if Buddhism is to continue to exercise a positive influence upon present and future generations, it cannot remain content with the achievements of the past. The religious ideals and moral values of Buddhism which have proved so useful to past generations must be transmitted to men and women living in a changing world. In order that this can be accomplished, it is important that the teachings of the Buddha be made available to the largest number of people.

With this objective in mind, the Srilankaramaya Buddhist Temple invited Dr Santina to deliver a series of public lectures. The lectures outlined the fundamentals of Buddhism and were well delivered. As a result, it was decided to produce transcriptions of the lectures and publish them in the form of a book to be made freely available. It is also hoped that the publication will contribute in a small degree to the understanding of the genuine teachings of the Buddha.

Sincerest thanks are extended to all those who lent their invaluable support and contribution to this project and especially to Dr Santina for imparting to us his deep understanding of the Buddha Dharma.

N Sumana Thera Resident Monk

SRILANKARAMAYA BUDDHIST TEMPLE SINGAPORE

VESAK 1984

 

BUDDHISM: A MODERN PERSPECTIVE

We are going to cover what we might call basic Buddhist teachings over a series of twelve lectures. We are going to cover the life of the Buddha, the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, Karma, rebirth, dependent origination, the three universal characteristics and the five aggregates. But before I begin the series of lectures, I would like to deal today with the notion of Buddhism in perspective. There are many ways in which different people in different cultures view Buddhism and particularly, I think we can contrast the western or modern attitude towards Buddhism with the traditional attitude. The reason why this kind of perspective study is useful is because when we understand how people of different cultures view a certain thing, we can then begin to see some of the limitation or onesidedness of our own view.

In the west, Buddhism has aroused extensive interest and sympathy. There are many persons of considerable standing in western societies who are either Buddhists or who are sympathetic towards Buddhism. This is most clearly exemplified by the remark made by Albert Einstein in his autobiography, the remark that he was not a religious man, but if he were one, he would be a Buddhist. This is quite surprising, and off-hand we would not expect such a remark to be made by the Father of Modern Science. Yet if we look at contemporary western societies, we will find an astrophysicist who is a Buddhist in France, we will find an outstanding psychologist who is a Buddhist at the University of Rome, and until recently a judge from England who is a Buddhist. We will look into the reasons for this interest in Buddhism in the west in a moment. But before we do that I would like to compare this situation with the situation that we find in this part of the world.

In Europe generally, the attitude towards Buddhism is that it is very advanced, very rational and very sophisticated. It was therefore quite a shock to me when I came to Singapore and found that a lot of people here view Buddhism as old fashioned, irrational and too much tied up with superstitions. This is one of the two attitudes that work against the appreciation of Buddhism here. The other is that Buddhism is so deep and so abstract that no one can ever understand it. It is a complete turnabout. This is what I mean by perspective, because in the western perspective Buddhism has a certain image, while in the traditional perspective we have another image. This negative image that people have about Buddhism has to be changed before they can really come to appreciate the Buddha’s teachings, before they can get a kind of balanced perspective regarding Buddhism.

One of the first things that a westerner appreciates about Buddhism is that it is not culture bound, not bound to any particular society, race or ethnic group. There are certain religions that are culture-bound, Judaism is one example. Buddhism is not. That is why historically we have Indian Buddhists, Thai Buddhists, Chinese Buddhists, Srilankan Buddhists, Burmese Buddhists and so forth, and we are going to have in the near future English Buddhists, American Buddhists, French Buddhists and so forth. This is because Buddhism is not culture-bound. It moves very easily from one culture to another because the emphasis in Buddhism is on internal practice rather than on external practice. Its emphasis is on the way you develop your mind rather than the way you dress, the kind of food you take, the way you wear your hair and so forth.

The second point that I would like to make regards the pragmatism or the practicality of Buddhism. Instead of taking an interest in metaphysics and academic theories, the Buddha deals with problems per se and approaches them in a concrete way. This is again something which is very much in agreement with western ideas about utilitarianism. That is, if something works, use it. It is very much a part of western political, economic and scientific philosophy. This attitude of pragmatism is clearly expressed in the Culama-lunkya Sutra where the Buddha made use of the example of the wounded man. The man wounded by an arrow wishes to know who shoots the arrow, from which direction it comes, whether the arrow head is made of bone or iron, whether the shaft is of this kind of wood or another before he will have the arrow removed. This man is likened to those who would like to know about the origin of the Universe, whether the world is eternal or not, finite or not before they will undertake to practise a religion. Just as the man in the parable will die before he has all the answers he wants regarding the origin and nature of the arrow, such people will die before they will ever have the answers to all their irrelevant questions. This exemplifies what we call the Buddha’s practical attitude. It has a lot to say about the whole question of priorities and problem solving. We would not make much progress developing wisdom if we ask the wrong question. It is essentially a question of priority. The first priority for all of us is the problem of suffering. The Buddha recognized this and said it is of no use for us to speculate whether the world is eternal or not because we all have got an arrow in our chest, the arrow of suffering. We have to ask questions that will lead to the removal of this arrow. One can express this in a very simple way. We can see that in our daily life, we constantly make choices based on priority. If, for instance, we happen to be cooking something on the stove and we decide that while the beans are boiling we will dust the house, and as we dust the house we smell something burning. We have to make the choice, whether to carry on with our dusting or whether to go to turn down the flame on the stove to save the beans. In the same way, if we want to make progress towards wisdom we have to recognize our priorities and this point is made very clearly in the parable of the wounded man.

The third point that I would like to refer to is the Buddha’s teaching on the importance of verification through experience. This point is made clearly in His advice to the Kalamas contained in the Kesaputtiya Sutra. The Kalamas were a people very much like us in our modern day when we are exposed to so many different teachings. They went to the Buddha and enquired that as there were so many different teachers and as all of them claimed that their doctrine was true, how were they to know who was telling the truth. The Buddha told them not to accept anything out of authority, not to accept anything because it happens to be written down; not to accept anything out of reverence for their teacher; or out of hearsay; or because it sounds reasonable. But to verify, test what they have heard in the light of their own experience. When they know for themselves that certain things are harmful then they should abandon them. When they know for themselves that certain things are beneficial, that they lead to happiness and calm, then they should follow them. The Buddha gives this advice that one has to verify what one hears in the light of one’s experience. In the context of the Buddha’s advice to the Kalamas, I think what the Buddha is saying is to use your own mind as a test tube. You can see for yourself that when greed and anger are present, they lead to suffering, pain and disturbance. And you can see for yourself that when greed and anger are absent from your mind, it leads to calm, to happiness. It is a very simple experiment which we all can do for ourselves. This is a very important point because what the Buddha has taught will only be effective, will only really change our life if we can carry out this kind of experiment in our life, if we can realize the truth of the Buddha’s teachings through our own experience and verify it through our own experience. Only then can we really say that we are making progress on the path towards enlightenment.

We can see a striking parallel between the Buddha’s own approach and the approach of science to the problem of knowledge. The Buddha stresses the importance of objective observation. Observation is in a sense the key to the Buddha’s method of knowledge. It is observation that yields the first of the Four Noble Truths, the truth of suffering. Again at the final stage of the Buddha’s path, it is observation that characterizes the realization of the total end of suffering. So at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the Buddha’s path, observation plays an extremely important role. This is similar to the role that objective observation plays in the scientific tradition which teaches that when we observe a problem we must first formulate a general theory followed by a specific hypothesis. We find the same thing happening in the teaching of the Four Noble Truths and here the general theory is that all things have a cause, and the specific hypothesis is that the causes of suffering are craving and ignorance. This truth that the causes of suffering are craving and ignorance can be verified by the experimental method. In the context of the Four Noble Truths, the experimental method is the path. Through the path, the truth of the Second Noble Truth (the truth of the cause of suffering), and the Third Noble Truth (the truth of the cessation of suffering) are verified because through this cultivation of the path one eliminates craving and ignorance. And through the elimination of craving and ignorance one eliminates suffering. This experiment is repeatable just as in science because not only did the Buddha attain the end of suffering, but so too did all those who followed His path.

So if we look closely at the Buddha’s approach to the problem of knowledge, we find that His approach is very similar to the scientific approach and this too has aroused a tremendous amount of interest in the west. We can now begin to see why it is that Einstein could make a remark like the one that he did. We will see more clearly why this is not as surprising as it seems initially because I would like to talk about the Buddhist method of analysis and we can begin to see it operating very clearly when we look at the Buddhist approach to experience.

Experience in Buddhism is comprised of two components — the objective component and the subjective component. In other words, the things around us and we the perceivers. Buddhism is noted for its analytical method in the area of philosophy and psychology. What we mean by this is that the Buddha analyzes experience into various elements, the most basic of these being the five Skandhas or aggregates — form, feeling, perception, mental formation or volition and consciousness. The five aggregates in turn can be analyzed into the eighteen elements (Dhatus) and we have a still more elaborate analysis in terms of this seventy two elements. This method is analytical as it breaks up things. We are not satisfied with a vague notion of experience, but we analyze it, we probe it, we break it down into its component parts like we break down the chariot into the wheels, the axle and so on. And we do this in order to get an idea how things work. When we see for instance a flower, or hear a piece of music, or meet a friend, all these experiences arise as a result of components. This is what is called the analytical approach. And again this analytical approach is not at all strange to modern science and philosophy. We find the analytical approach very substantially used in science. In philosophy, we see the analytical tradition perhaps best in Bertrand Russell. There have been studies that compare quite successfully the philosophy of Bertrand Russell with the philosophy of the Buddhist Abhidharma. So in western science and philosophy, we find a very close parallel with the Buddhist analytical method and this again is one of the familiar features that has attracted western thinkers and academics to Buddhism. In the area of psychology, psychologists are now deeply interested in the Buddhist analysis of the various factors of experience — feeling, idea, habit and so forth. They are now turning to Buddhist teachings to gain a greater insight into their own disciplines.

This growing interest in Buddhism and these many areas of affinity between the teachings of the Buddha and the tendencies of modern science, philosophy and psychology have reached their apex at this very time in the suggestions now proposed by quantum physics, the latest developments in experimental theoretical physics. Here too we find that not only is the method of science observation, experiment and analysis anticipated by the Buddha, but that some of the very specific conclusions about the nature of man and the universe that are indicated by the latest developments in quantum physics were also indicated by the Buddha. For instance, the importance of the mind. A noted physicist not long ago remarked that the Universe is really something like a great thought. And it is said in the Dhammapada that the mind precedes all things, that the mind is the maker of all mental states. Similarly, the relativity of matter and energy is mentioned. There is no radical division between mind and matter. All these indications are now gradually being revealed by the latest developments in science.

So what has happened is that in the western contexts, academics, psychologists, and scientists have found in Buddhism a tradition which is in harmony with some of the basic tenets of western scientific thought. In addition to this, they find that Buddhism is particularly interesting because although the methods and the discoveries often resemble closely those of Buddhism, they find that in science so far, there is no path or method of achieving an inner transformation. They have methods of building better cities and expressways but they have not had any system which will enable them to build better people. So people in the west are turning to Buddhism. As an ancient tradition, it has many aspects that closely resemble practices in the western scientific traditions and yet goes beyond the materialism of the western tradition, beyond the limits of the scientific tradition.

THE PREBUDDHIST BACKGROUND

We are going to begin today with a consideration of the prebuddhist situation in India. Normally Buddhist studies courses begin with a study of the life of the Buddha. We are going to begin before the life of the Buddha. Personally I feel this is quite important as I feel it helps one to understand the life and teachings of the Buddha in their broader historical and conceptual context and to understand and appreciate better the nature of Buddhism and perhaps Indian thought as a whole.

I do not know how many of you have visited India. We have in the North of India two great rivers — one is the Ganges and the other is the Yamuna. These two great rivers have separate sources in the Himalayas and they flow separately for a good proportion of their lengths. They unite in the north eastern region of India. From there they flow on together to the Bay of Bengal. In a way the geography of these two great rivers is a symbol of the origin and development of Indian religion, philosophy and thought because in Indian religion too we have two great rivers which were originally quite distinct and had separate origins and which for a considerable length of time were separate but which at a certain point of time merged and flowed on united right to the present day. Perhaps as I go into the prebuddhist history of India, we can keep in mind the image of these two rivers originally separate and at a certain point merging and flowing together to the sea.

When we look at the very early history of India, we find that there existed in the 3rd Millennium B.C. a very highly developed civilization in the Indian subcontinent. This civilization is as old as those which are called the cradles of human culture, civilizations like those of Egypt and Babylon. This civilization existed approximately between the year 2800 B.C. and 1800 B.C. It was known as the Indus Valley Civilization or it is sometimes called the Harappa Civilization, and it extended from what is now Western Pakistan, south to a point which is near Bombay and eastward to a point which is in the neighborhood of what is now Simla in the foothills of the Himalayas. If you see a map of India, you will realize that this is a very considerable extent. Not only was this civilization stable for a thousand years, it was also a very highly developed civilization both materially and spiritually. Materially the civilization was an agrarian one. They were skilled in irrigation and the planning of towns. In addition, they had a very highly developed spiritual culture. This is clear from the archaeological evidence that has been discovered at Mohenjodaro and Harappa. There is also evidence of the fact that they were literate. They had developed a script which unfortunately we are not able to decipher.

The peaceful life of this civilization was unfortunately interrupted in about the year 1800 or 1500 B.C. by an invasion that came from the North West. The invading people were known as the Aryans and this is a term that designated a people of Eastern Europe. The origin of the Aryans was in the grassy region extending from Poland to Western Russia. The Aryans were very different from the people of the Indus Valley Civilization because they were generally nomadic and pastoral. They did not have a highly developed urban civilization. They were a warlike expanding pioneer civilization that lived in large part from the spoils and plunder that they gathered from the peoples they conquered in the course of their migration. When the Aryans arrived in India, they very quickly destroyed the Indus Valley Civilization. The Indus Valley Civilization succumbed very quickly to the military might of the Aryans. What existed in India after the invasion was an Aryan dominated civilization.

Here we have a brief outline of the facts regarding the early history of India. But let us look at the religious outlook of the people of the Indus Valley Civilization and the Aryan Civilization which is of particular interest to us. The Indus Valley Civilization had a script which we are unfortunately unable to decipher. But our information regarding the nature of this civilization is from two sources, first from the archaeological discoveries at the sites of Mohenjodaro and Harappa and second from the records of the Aryans who described thereligious behaviour and beliefs of the people they conquered. From the archaeological evidence we find a number of symbols that are of religious significance, that are special to Buddhism: the symbols of the Bodhi tree and animals such as the elephant and deer. Perhaps most importantly there have been discovered several images of figures sitting in cross-legged postures with their hands resting on their knees, with their eyes narrowed, half-closed quite evidently in postures of meditation. These archaeological findings have been studied by eminent scholars and the conclusion is that we can quite definitely trace the origin and practice of meditation to the Indus Valley Civilization. When we look at the descriptions of the religion of the Indus Valley Civilization from the writings of the Aryans — the Vedas — we find the figure of a wandering ascetic frequently mentioned. We find that they practised meditation, that they were celibate, that they observed an austere life, that they were sometimes naked or clothed in most simple garments, that they wandered about homeless and that they taught in the way beyond birth and death. If we put together the evidence of the archaeological findings and the evidence of Aryan literature, we find that there emerges a picture of the religion of the people of the Indus Valley Civilization in which there are several important elements. First of all, meditation or mental concentration; secondly renunciation, abandoning the household life, living the life of a wandering ascetic; thirdly that we have a conception of rebirth over a long series of lives; fourthly we have a conception of moral responsibility beyond this life, the notion of karma; and lastly we have a goal of religious life, a goal of liberation. These are the salient features of the religion of the very earliest Indian Civilization.

By contrast, and it would be hard to find two religious views that are more different, let us look at the religion of the Aryans. Here we find it much easier to construct a picture because we have a complete literature with regard to their religion. When the Aryans came to India, they had a religion which was totally secular. They were an expanding pioneering society. There are many close parallels between the Aryan religion and the religion of the Greeks. If you have come across the description of the Greek pantheon you will find striking similarities between their pantheon and the Aryan pantheon. You will find in the Aryan faith a number of gods who are personifications of natural phenomena. We have Indra for instance who was the God of Lightning and the Thunderstorm personifying power, we have Agni the God of Fire, and Varuna the God of Water. We have a religious set-up in which the priest is the most important figure, while in the Indus Valley Civilization the ascetic was the most important figure. In the Indus Valley Civilization renunciation was the ideal of religious life, while in the Aryan religion the ideal state is the householder state. In the Indus Valley Civilization we have a rejection of sons and offspring, while in the Aryan religion sons are the highest good. While in the Indus Valley Civilization we have the practice of meditation, in the Aryan religion we have the practice of sacrifice — sacrifice was an important means of communication with the gods, of achieving victories in battles, of gaining offspring, of going to heaven. While in the Indus Valley Civilization we have belief in the Law of Karma, and rebirth, in the Aryan Civilization we have no conception of rebirth. Just as in the Indus Valley Civilization we have the notion of moral responsibility extending over a series of lives, in the Aryan Civilization we have no such notion. In fact the highest ideal was loyalty, those values that contributed to the power of the community. Finally while in the Indus Valley Civilization we have liberation as the goal of religious life, in the Aryan Civilization we have heaven as the goal of religious life. The idea that they had of heaven was a heaven modelled upon a perfected version of this life. So if we want to sum up the differences between the religions of these two civilizations, we can say that on the one hand the Indus Valley Civilization stresses renunciation, meditation, rebirth, karma, the goal of liberation; on the other hand the Aryan religion stresses this life, material well-being, wealth, power, fame and sacrifices as means of achieving these goals. It would be hard to find a set of more diametrically opposed religious attitudes. In addition, there are two more important elements of Aryan religion that we ought to recall: caste — the division of society into social strata; and belief in the authority of the revealed scriptures, the Vedas. These two elements were not present in the Indus Valley Civilization.

The history of Indian religion from 1500 B.C. up to 600 or 500 B.C., the time of the Buddha, the history of those 1000 years in India is a history of gradual interaction between these two totally opposed religious views. As the Aryans gradually spread and settled across the gigantic Indian subcontinent, as their pioneering exploits diminished, gradually these two totally opposed religious views began to influence, interact and merge with each other. This is the merging I had in mind when I talked about the merging of the two great rivers. Consequently by the time of the Buddha, we have a very heterogeneous religious scene. We can understand this clearly if we look at some of the facts regarding the life of the Buddha. For instance, we find that when the Buddha was born, two groups of people made prophecies regarding His future greatness. The first prophecy was made by Asita. Asita was a hermit, who lived in the mountains and yet sources tell us that he was a Brahmin, that he belonged to the priestly class. This in itself is already evidence of the interaction of the two traditions. In the Buddha’s time, Brahmins had begun to go forth as hermits. This was unheard of a thousand years before. A little later, we are told that 108 Brahmins were invited to the naming ceremony. Here we have examples of priests who had not renounced the household life, an example of an institution that properly and originally belonged to the Aryan Civilization.

How is it that the two traditions — the Indus Valley tradition and the Aryan tradition, initially so different were able to merge? I think the answer to this lies in the dramatic changes which took place in the life of the Indian people between the 2nd Millennium B.C. and the time of the Buddha. The Aryan expansion came to an end when they had conquered the plains of India. This end of expansion brought about many social, economic and political changes. In the first place, the tribal political society evolved into the institution of the territorial state so that no longer do you have a tribe with a very close personal set of loyalties. You have now a territorial state where many people of various tribes exist together. The kingdom of Magadha ruled by Bimbisara in the time of the Buddha is an example of an emerging territorial state. Secondly, you have this nomadic pastoral lifestyle gradually changed into a more urbanized agricultural settled lifestyle so that the people were now living in urban centres, and were removed from the natural forces that had been personified in the gods. Economically, commerce became important. So while in the early days of the Aryan Civilization the priests and warriors were the most important figures — the priest because he communicated with the gods, the warrior because he waged wars against the enemy and brought spoils into the community — now the merchants became increasingly important. We can see this in the days of the Buddha, the famous disciples who were merchants — Anathapindika to name only one. These social, economic and political changes contributed to an openness on the part of the Aryans to accept the religious ideas of the Indus Valley Civilization. While the Aryans conquered the Indus Valley people militarily, the subsequent 100